• Atmosphere
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.85-97
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• 2018

This study evaluates the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in reproducing the present-day (1981~2005) precipitation over Far East Asia and South Korea. The WRF model is configured with 25-km horizontal resolution within the context of the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) - East Asia Phase 2. The initial and lateral boundary forcing for the WRF simulation are derived from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast Interim reanalysis. According to our results, WRF model shows a reasonable performance to reproduce the features of precipitation, such as seasonal climatology, annual and inter-annual variabilities, seasonal march of monsoon rainfall and extreme precipitation. In spite of such model's ability to simulate major features of precipitation, systematic biases are found in the downscaled simulation in some sub-regions and seasons. In particular, the WRF model systematically tends to overestimate (underestimate) precipitation over Far East Asia (South Korea), and relatively large biases are evident during the summer season. In terms of inter-annual variability, WRF shows an overall smaller (larger) standard deviation in the Far East Asia (South Korea) compared to observation. In addition, WRF overestimates the frequency and amount of weak precipitation, but underestimates those of heavy precipitation. Also, the number of wet days, the precipitation intensity above the 95 percentile, and consecutive wet days (consecutive dry days) are overestimated (underestimated) over eastern (western) part of South Korea. The results of this study can be used as reference data when providing information about projections of fine-scale climate change over East Asia.

• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.105-118
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• 2017

This study assesses the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in reproducing regional climate over CORDEX-East Asia Phase 2 domain with different cumulus parameterization schemes [Kain-Fritch (KF), Betts-Miller-Janjic (BM), and Grell-Devenyi-Ensemble (GD)]. The model is integrated for 27 months from January 1979 to March 1981 and the initial and boundary conditions are derived from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast Interim Reanalysis (ERA-Interim). The WRF model reasonably reproduces the temperature and precipitation characteristics over East Asia, but the regional scale responses are very sensitive to cumulus parameterization schemes. In terms of mean bias, WRF model with BM scheme shows the best performance in terms of summer/winter mean precipitation as well as summer mean temperature throughout the North East Asia. In contrast, the seasonal mean precipitation is generally overestimated (underestimated) by KF (GD) scheme. In addition, the seasonal variation of the temperature and precipitation is well simulated by WRF model, but with an overestimation in summer precipitation derived from KF experiment and with an underestimation in wet season precipitation from BM and GD schemes. Also, the frequency distribution of daily precipitation derived from KF and BM experiments (GD experiment) is well reproduced, except for the overestimation (underestimation) in the intensity range above (less) then $2.5mm\;d^{-1}$. In the case of the amount of daily precipitation, all experiments tend to underestimate (overestimate) the amount of daily precipitation in the low-intensity range < $4mm\;d^{-1}$ (high-intensity range > $12mm\;d^{-1}$). This type of error is largest in the KF experiment.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.585-597
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• 2019

This study evaluates the performance of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in simulating temperature over the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment-East Asia (CORDEX-EA) Phase 2 domain for the reference period (1981~2005), and assesses the changes in temperature and its extremes in the mid-21st century (2026~2050) under global warming based on Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios. MPI-ESM-LR forced by two RCP scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) is used as initial and lateral boundary conditions. Overall, WRF can capture the observed features of temperature distribution reflecting local topographic characteristic, despite some disagreement between the observed and simulated patterns. Basically, WRF shows a systematic cold bias in daily mean, minimum and maximum temperature over the entire domain. According to the future projections, summer and winter mean temperatures over East Asia will significantly increase in the mid-21st century. The mean temperature rise is expected to be greater in winter than in summer. In accordance with these results, summer (winter) is projected to begin earlier (later) in the future compared to the historical period. Furthermore, a rise in extreme temperatures shows a tendency to be greater in the future. The averages of daily minimum and maximum temperatures above 90 percentiles are likely to be intensified in the high-latitude, while hot days and hot nights tend to be more frequent in the low-latitude in the mid-21st century. Especially, East Asia would be suffered from strong increases in nocturnal temperature under future global warming.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.165-181
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• 2019

In this study, the regional climate model, RegCM4.0 (25 km), with the HadGEM2-AO data as boundary conditions, was used to simulate the mean climate changes in the mid and late 21st century for CORDEX Phase 2 East Asian region. 122 years (1979~2100) of simulation were performed, and RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 were used for the simulation of future climate. In the mid-21st century, the temperature is expected to increase by about 0.5 to $3.0^{\circ}C$ in all regions of East Asia, regardless of season and scenario. The increase in temperature is greater in summer and winter, especially in the northern part of simulation domain. Interannual variability (IAV) is expected to decrease by 25% in summer for RCP 8.5, while it is expected to increase by more than 30% in autumn for both scenarios. Regardless of the scenario, the precipitation in South Korea is expected to increase in late June but decrease in mid-July, with an increase in precipitation greater than $100mm\;day^{-1}$. In RCP 4.5 of the late 21st century, relatively uniform temperature increase ($1.0{\sim}2.5^{\circ}C$) is expected throughout the continent, while RCP 8.5 shows a very diverse increase ($3.0{\sim}6.0^{\circ}C$) depending on season and geographical location. In addition, the IAV of temperature is expected to decrease by more than 35% in both scenarios in the summer. In most of the Northwest Pacific region, precipitation is expected to decrease in all seasons except for the summer, but in South Korea, it is projected to increase by about 10% in all seasons except autumn.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.361-376
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• 2020

This study evaluates multiple Regional Climate Models (RCMs) in simulating temperature and precipitation over the Far East Asia (FEA) and estimates the portions of the total uncertainty originating in the RCMs and the driving Global Climate Models (GCMs) using nine present-day (1981~2000) climate data obtained from combinations of three GCMs and three RCMs in the CORDEX-EA phase2. Downscaling using the RCMs generally improves the present temperature and precipitation simulated in the GCMs. The mean temperature climate in the RCM simulations is similar to that in the GCMs; however, RCMs yield notably better spatial variability than the GCMs. In particular, the RCMs generally yield positive added values to the variability of the summer temperature and the winter precipitation. Evaluating the uncertainties by the GCMs (VARGCM) and the RCMs (VARRCM) on the basis of two-way ANOVA shows that VARRCM is greater than VARGCM in contrast to previous studies which showed VARGCM is larger. In particular, in the winter temperature, the ocean has a very large VARRCM of up to 30%. Precipitation shows that VARRCM is greater than VARGCM in all seasons, but the difference is insignificant. In the following study, we will analyze how the uncertainty of the climate model in the present-day period affects future climate change prospects.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.367-385
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• 2022

This study evaluates the temperature and precipitation results in East Asia simulated from the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 3 regional climate model (HadGEM3-RA) developed by the UK Met Office. The HadGEM3-RA is conducted in the Coordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment-East Asia (CORDEX-EA) Phase II domain for 15 year (2000-2014). The spatial distribution of rainbands produced from the HadGEM3-RA by the summer monsoon is in good agreement with the Asian Precipitation Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of water resources (APRODITE) data over the East Asia. But, precipitation amount is overestimated in Southeast Asia and underestimated over the Korean Peninsula. In particular, the simulated summer rainfall and APRODITE data show the least correlation coefficient and the maximum value of root mean square error in South Korea. Prediction of temperature in Southeast Asia shows underestimation with a maximum error during winter season, while it appears the largest underestimation in South Korea during spring season. In order to evaluate local predictability, the time series of temperature and precipitation compared to the ASOS data of the Seoul Meteorological Station is similar to the spatial average verification results in which the summer precipitation and winter temperature underestimate. Especially, the underestimation of the rainfall increases when the amounts of precipitation increase in summer. The winter temperature tends to underestimate at low temperature, while it overestimates at high temperature. The results of the extreme climate index comparison show that heat wave is overestimated and heavy rainfall is underestimated. The HadGEM3-RA simulated with a horizontal resolution of 25 km shows limitations in the prediction of mesoscale convective system and topographic precipitation. This study indicates that improvement of initial data, horizontal resolution, and physical process are necessary to improve predictability of regional climate model.