• Atmosphere
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.75-90
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• 2005

This study examines the impacts of land cover changes on the East Asia summer monsoon with the National Center for Atmospheric Research Regional Climate Model (NCAR RegCM2), coupled with Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS). To assess the goals, two types of land cover maps were used in the simulation of summer climate. One type was NCAR land cover map (CTL) and the other was current land cover map derived from satellite data (land cover: LCV). Warm and cold surface temperature biases of $1-3^{\circ}C$ occurred over central China and Mongolia in CTL. The model produced excessive precipitation over northern land area but less over southern ocean of the model domain. Changes of biophysical parameters, such as albedo, minimum stomatal resistance and roughness length, due to the land cover changes resulted in the alteration of land-atmosphere interactions. Latent heat flux and wind speed in LCV increased noticeably over central China where deciduous broad leaf trees have been replaced by mixed farm and irrigated crop. As a result, the systematic warm biases over central China were greatly reduced in LCV. Strong cooling of central China decreased pressure gradient between East Asian continent and Pacific Ocean. The decreased pressure gradient suppressed the northward transport of moisture from south China and South China Sea. These changes reduced not only the excessive precipitation over north China and Mongolia but also less precipitation over south China. However, the land cover changes increased the precipitation over the Korean Peninsula and the Japan Islands, especially in July and August.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.23-40
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• 2016

In this study, long-term changes in means and extreme events of precipitation during summer rainy period called Changma (late June~early September) are examined based on rainfall data observed by Chukwooki during Joseon Dynasty (1777~1907) and by modern rain-gauge onward (1908~2015) in Seoul, Korea. Also, characterizations of the relevant changes in synoptic climate fields in East Asia are made by the examination of the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis I data. Analyses of 239-year time series of precipitation data demonstrate that the total precipitation as well as their inter-annual variability during the entire Changma period (late June~early September) has increased in the late 20th century and onward. Notably, since the early 1990s the means and extreme events during the summer Changma period (late June~mid-July) and Changma break period (late July~early August) has significantly increased, resulting in less clear demarcations of sub-Changma periods. In this regard, comparisons of synoptic climate fields before and after the early 1990s reveal that in recent decades the subtropical high pressure has expanded in the warmer Pacific as the advection of high-latitude air masses toward East Asia was enhanced due to more active northerly wind vector around the high pressure departure core over Mongolia. Consequently, it is suggested that the enhancement of rising motions due to more active confluence of the two different air masses along the northwestern borders of the Pacific might lead to the increases of the means and extreme events of Changma precipitation in Seoul in recent decades.

• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.541-554
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• 2014

Historical, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios from HadGEM2-AO are dynamically downscaled over the northeast East Asia with WRFV3.4. The horizontal resolution of the produced data is 12.5 km and the periods of integration are 1979~2010 for historical and 2019~2100 for both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. We analyze the time series, climatology, EOF and extreme climate in terms of 2 m-temperature and precipitation during 30-year for the Historical (1981~2010) and RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 (2071~2100) scenarios. According to the result, the temperature of the northeast Asia centered at the Korean Peninsula increase 2.9 and $4.6^{\circ}C$ in the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively, by the end of the 21st century. The temperature increases with latitude and the increase is larger in winter rather than in summer. The annual mean precipitation is expected to increase by about $0.3mm\;day^{-1}$ in RCP4.5 scenario and $0.5mm\;day^{-1}$ in RCP8.5 scenario. The EOF analysis is also performed for both temperature and precipitation. For temperature, the EOF $1^{st}$ modes of all scenarios in summer and winter show that temperature increase with latitude. The $2^{nd}$ mode of EOF of each scenario shows the natural variability, exclusive of the global warming. The summer precipitation over the Korean Peninsula projected increases in EOF $1^{st}$ modes of all scenarios. For extreme climate, the increment of the number of days with daily maximum temperature above $30^{\circ}C$ per year ($DAY_{TX30}$) is 25.3 and 49.7 days in RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively over the Korean Peninsula. The number of days with daily precipitation above $20mm\;day^{-1}$ per year ($DAY_{PR20}$) also increases 3.1 and 3.5 days in RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively.

• Atmosphere
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.85-95
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• 2016

In this study, we investigated the variabilities of wind speed of 850 hPa and precipitable water over the East Asia region using the NCEP Final Analysis data from December 2001 to November 2011. A large variance of wind speed was observed in northern and eastern China during the winter period. During summer, the regions of the East China Sea, the South Sea of Japan and the East Sea show large variances in the wind speed caused by an extended North Pacific High and typhoon activities. The large variances in the wind speed in the regions are shown to be correlated with the inter-annual variability of precipitable water over the inland region of windward side of the Korean Peninsula. Based on the investigation, sensitivity tests to the domain size were performed using the WRF model version 3.6 for heavy precipitation events over the Korean Peninsula for 26 and 27 July 2011. Numerical experiments of different domain sizes were set up with 5 km horizontal and 50 levels vertical resolutions for the control and the first experimental run, and 9 km horizontal for the second experimental run. We found that the major rainfalls correspond to shortwave troughs with baroclinic structure over Northeast China and extended North Pacific High. The correlation analysis between the observation and experiments for 1-h precipitation indicated that the second experiment with the largest domain had the best performance with the correlation coefficient of 0.79 due to the synoptic-scale systems such as short-wave troughs and North Pacific High.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.1151-1159
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• 2014

In this study, two global simple indices are used to investigate climate variability and change in observations. Land-Ocean Contrast (LOC) is an index of area-averaged surface temperature contrast between land and ocean. Meridional Temperature Gradient (MTG) is defined as the mean meridional temperature gradient in the Northern Hemisphere from mid to high latitude and sub-tropical zonal bands. These indices have direct or indirect effects on changing in atmospheric circulations and atmospheric moisture transport from north-south or east-west into East Asia (EA). In addition, warm season hydrometeorology in EA is highly associated with water supplies for coupled human and natural systems including drinking water, irrigation, hydropower generation as well as fisheries. Therefore, in this study, we developed an empirical separation approach for summer rainfall from typhoon and monsoon. An exploratory analysis was also conducted to identify the regional patterns of summer monsoon precipitation over the Korean peninsula within the context of changes in different types of temperature gradients. The results show significant and consistent changes in summer monsoon rainfall during the summer season (June-September) in South Korea.

• Atmosphere
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.527-538
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• 2013

In this study, climate over Korea based on the Historical scenario induced by HadGEM2-AO is simulated by WRF. For this purpose, a system that can be used be for numerical integration over the Far East Asian area of the center of the Korean Peninsula with 12.5 km-horizontal resolution was set-up at "Haebit", the early portion of KMA Supercomputer Unit-3. Using the system, the downscaling experiments were conducted for the period 1979-2010. The simulated results of HadGEM2-AO and WRF are presented in terms of 2 m-temperature and precipitation during boreal summer and winter of Historical for the period 1981~2005, compared with observation. As for the mean 2 m-temperature, the general patterns of HadGEM2-AO and WRF are similar with observation although WRF showed lower values than observation due to the systematic bias. WRF reproduced a feature of the terrain-following characteristics reasonably well owing to the increased horizontal resolution. Both of the models simulated the observed precipitation pattern for DJF than JJA reasonably, while the rainfall over the Korean Peninsula in JJA is less than observation. HadGEM2-AO in DJF 2 m-temperature and JJA precipitation has warm and dry biases over the Korean Peninsula, respectively. WRF showed cold bias over JJA 2 m-temperature and wet bias over DJF precipitation. The larger bias in WRF was attributed to the addition of HadGEM2-AO's bias to WRF's systematic bias. Spatial correlation analysis revealed that HadGEM2-AO and WRF had above 0.8 correlation coefficients except for JJA precipitation. In the EOF analysis, both models results explained basically same phase changes and variation as observation. Despite the difference in mean and bias fields for both models, the variabilities of the two models were almost similar with observation in many respects, implying that the downscaled results can be effectively used for the study of regional climate around the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.33-45
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• 2011

The characteristics and vertical structure of the rainfall are examined in terms of rain types using TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) PR (Precipitation Radar) data during the JJA period of 2002-2006 over three different regions; midlatitude region around the Korean Peninsula (EA1), subtropical East Asia (EA2), and tropical East Asia (EA3). The convective rain fraction in the EA1 region is 12.2%, which is smaller by 6% than those in the EA2 and EA3 regions. EA1 shows less frequent convective rain events, which are about 0.5 times as many as those in EA3. EA1 produces the mean convective rain rate of 10.4 mm/h that is about 40% larger than EA2 and EA3 while all regions have similar mean stratiform rain rate. The relationships between storm height and rain rate indicate that the rain rate is proportional to the storm height. Based on the vertical structure of radar reflectivity, EA1 produces deeper and stronger convective clouds with higher rain rate compared to the other regions. In EA3, radar reflectivity increases distinctly toward the land surface at altitude below 5 km, indicating more dominant coalescence-collision processes than the other regions. Furthermore, the bright band of stratiform rain clouds in EA3 is very distinct. In convective rain clouds, the first EOFs of radar reflectivity profiles are similar among the three regions, while the second EOFs are slightly different. The larger variability exists at upper layers for EA1 while it exits at lower levels for EA3.

• Atmosphere
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.687-696
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• 2016

The western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) in boreal summer has interannual and interdecadal variability, which affects East Asian summer monsoon variability. In particular, it is well known that the intensity of WNPSH is reversely related to that of summer monsoon in North East Asia in association with Pacific Japan (PJ)-like pattern. Many coupled climate models weakly simulate this large-scale teleconnection pattern and also exhibit the diverse variability of WNPSH. This study discusses the inter-model differences of WNPSH simulated by different climate models, which participate in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5). In comparing with reanalysis observation, the 29 CMIP5 models could be assorted into two difference groups in terms of interannual variability of WNPSH. This study also discusses the dynamical or thermodynamics factors for the differences of two groups of the CMIP5 climate models. As results, the regressed precipitation in well-simulating group onto the Nino3.4 index ($5^{\circ}N-5^{\circ}S$, $170^{\circ}W-120^{\circ}W$) is stronger than that in poorly-simulating group. We suggest that this difference of two groups of the CMIP5 climate models would have an effect on simulating the interannual variability of WNPSH.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.593-607
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• 2015

This study examined the Holocene environmental changes by OSL dating and magnetic susceptibility (MS) in 12 sediment cores from estuarine tidal flat, Mosan Bay Estuary, west coast of Korea. For the complexity of the geomorphic characteristics of estuaries, it is difficult to obtain a series of data. The following significant results were derived using relatively simple methods. First, MS data shows sensitive changes in pattern according to the precipitation change during mid to late Holocene. Second, MS data show periodicity of 250 yr. when they were wavelet transformed. This periodicity is related with the intensifying of solar intensity, the East Asian Summer Monsoon and ENSO. Thus, MS data from estuarine sediments are valuable data which can explain mechanism of climate change in East Asia and worthy as proxy data.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.38-38
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• 2012

The East Asia (EA) region including China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea are especially vulnerable to hydrometerological extremes during the boreal summer (June-September). This study, therefore, pursued an exploratory analysis to improve better understanding of the potential impacts of the two types of PJ patterns on WNP Tropical cyclone (TC) activities and TC-induced extreme moisture fluxes over Korea's five major river basins. This study shows that during positive PJ years, the large-scale atmospheric environments are more favorable for the TC activities than those in negative PJ years. During positive PJ year, it is found that there are weaker wind shear, stronger rising motion, as well as large relative humidity over the Korean peninsula (KP) compared to negative PJ years. As a result, TCs making landfall are more exhibited over the southeastern portions of South Korea. Despite the relatively modest sample size, we expect that insights and results presented here will be useful for developing a critical support system for the effective reduction and mitigation of TC-caused disasters, as well as for water supply management in coupled human and natural systems.