• Atmosphere
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.399-411
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• 2023

This study compares the three detection algorithms of East Asian summer atmospheric rivers (ARs). The algorithms developed by Guan and Waliser (GW15), Park et al. (P21), and Tian et al. (T23) are particularly compared in terms of the AR frequency, the number of AR events, and the AR duration for the period of 2016-2020. All three algorithms show similar spatio-temporal distributions of AR frequency, centered along the edge of the North Pacific high. The maximum AR frequency gradually shifts northward in early summer as the edge of the North Pacific High expands, and retreats in late summer. However, the detailed pattern and the maximum value differ among the algorithms. When the AR frequency is decomposed into the number of AR events and the AR duration, the AR frequencies detected by GW15 and P21 are equally explained by both factors. However, the number of AR events primarily determine the AR frequency in T23. This difference occurs as T23 utilizes the machine learning algorithm applied to moisture field while GW15 and P21 apply the threshold value to moisture transport field. When evaluating AR-related precipitation, the ARs detected by P21 show the closest relationship with total precipitation in East Asia by up to 60%. These results indicate that AR detection in the East Asian summer is sensitive to the choice of the detection algorithm and can be optimized for the target region.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1719-1729
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• 2014

This study is carried out in order to bridge the gap to understand the relationships between South Asian and East Asian monsoon systems by comparing the summer (June-September) precipitation of Nepal and South Korea. Summer monsoon precipitation data from Nepal and South Korea during 30 years (1981-2010) are used in this research to investigate the association. NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data are also used to see the nature of large scale phenomena. Statistical applications are used to analyze these data. The analyzed results show that summer monsoon precipitation is higher over Nepal ($1513.98{\pm}159.29mm\;y^{-1}$) than that of South Korea ($907.80{\pm}204.71mm\;y^{-1}$) and the wettest period in both the countries is July. However, the coefficient of variation shows that amplitude of interannual variation of summer monsoon over South Korea (22.55%) is larger in comparison to that of Nepal (10.52%). Summer monsoon precipitation of Nepal is found to be significantly correlated to that of South Korea with a correlation coefficient of 0.52 (99% confidence level). Large-scale circulations are studied to further investigate the relationship between the two countries. wind and specific humidity at 850 hPa show a strong westerly from Arabian Sea to BOB and from BOB, wind moves towards Nepal in a northwestward direction during the positive rainfall years. In case of East Asia, strong northward displacement of wind can be observed from Pacific to South Korea and strong anticyclone over the northwestern Pacific Ocean. However, during the negative rainfall years, in the South Asian region we can find weak westerly from the Arabian Sea to BOB, wind is blowing in a southerly direction from Nepal and Bangladesh to BOB.

• Atmosphere
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.55-68
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• 2007

Future climate changes over East Asia are projected by anthropogenic forcing of greenhouse gases and aerosols using ECHO-G/S (ECHAM4/HOPE-G). Climate simulation in the 21st century is conducted with three standard SRES scenarios (A1B, B1, and A2) and the model performance is assessed by the 20th Century (20C3M) experiment. From the present climate simulation (20C3M), the model reproduced reliable climate state in the most fields, however, cold bias in temperature and dry bias of summer in precipitation occurred. The intercomparison among models using Taylor diagram indicates that ECHO-G/S exhibits smaller mean bias and higher pattern correlation than other nine AOGCMs. Based on SRES scenarios, East Asia will experience warmer and wetter climate in the coming 21st century. Changes of geographical patterns from the present to the future are considerably similar through all the scenarios except for the magnitude difference. The temperature in winter and precipitation in summer show remarkable increase. In spite of the large uncertainty in simulating precipitation by regional scale, we found that the summer (winter) precipitation at eastern coast (north of $40^{\circ}N$) of East Asia has significantly increased. In the 21st century, the warming over the continents of East Asia showed much more increase than that over the ocean. Hence, more enhanced (weakened) land-sea thermal contrast over East Asia in summer (winter) will cause strong (weak) monsoon. In summer, the low pressure located in East Asia becomes deeper and the moisture from the south or southeast is transported more into the land. These result in increasing precipitation amount over East Asia, especially at the coastal region. In winter, the increase (decrease) of precipitation is accompanied by strengthening (weakening) of baroclinicity over the land (sea) of East Asia.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.235-248
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• 2015

In this study, we analyzed the three dimensional variations (latitude, longitude, and height of Jet core) and wind speed of upper Jet stream in the East Asian region using recent 35 years (1979~2013) of four reanalysis data (NCEP-R2, MERRA, ERA-Interim. and JRA-55). Most of Jet core is located in $30.0{\sim}37.5^{\circ}N$ and $13.0{\sim}157.5^{\circ}E$ although there are slight differences among the four reanalysis data. The wind speed differences among reanalysis are about $3m\;s^{-1}$ regardless of seasons, the weakest in NCEP-R2 and the strongest in JRA-55. Although significance level is not high, most of reanalysis showed that the Jet core has a tendency of southward moving during spring and winter, but moving northward during summer and fall. This amplified seasonal variation of Jet core suggests that seasonal variations of weather/climate can be increased in the East Asian region. The longitude of Jet core has a tendency of systematically westward moving and decreasing of zonal variations regardless of averaging methods and reanalysis data. In general, the Jet core shows a tendency of moving south-west-ward and upward, getting intensified during spring and winter regardless of the reanalysis data. However, the Jet core shows a tendency of moving westward and downward, and getting weakened during summer. In fall, there were no distinctive trends not only in wind speed but also three dimensional locations compared to other seasons. Although the significance levels are not high and variation patterns are slightly different according to the reanalysis data, our findings are more or less different from the previous results. So, more works are needed to clarify the three dimensional variation patterns of Jet core over the East Asian region as a result of global warming.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.293-309
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• 2020

There are lots of indices that define the intensity of East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) in climate systems. This paper assesses the prediction skill for EASM indices in a Global Seasonal Forecasting System (GloSea5) that is currently operating at KMA. Total 5 different types of EASM indices (WNPMI, EAMI, WYI, GUOI, and SAHI) are selected to investigate how well GloSea5 reproduces them using hindcasts with 12 ensemble members with 1~3 lead months. Each index from GloSea5 is compared to that from ERA-Interim. Hindcast results for the period 1991~2010 show the highest prediction skill for WNPMI which is defined as the difference between the zonal winds at 850 hPa over East China Sea and South China Sea. WYI, defined as the difference between the zonal winds of upper and lower level over the Indian Ocean far from East Asia, is comparatively well captured by GloSea5. Though the prediction skill for EAMI which is defined by using meridional winds over areas of East Asia and Korea directly affected by EASM is comparatively low, it seems that EAMI is useful for predicting the variability of precipitation by EASM over East Asia. The regressed atmospheric fields with EASM index and the correlation with precipitation also show that GloSea5 best predicts the synoptic environment of East Asia for WNPMI among 5 EASM indices. Note that the result in this study is limited to interpret only for GloSea5 since the prediction skill for EASM index depends greatly on climate forecast model systems.

• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.133-150
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• 2017

This study evaluates CMIP5 model performance on rainy season evolution in the East Asian summer monsoon. Historical (1986~2005) simulation is analyzed using ensemble mean of CMIP5 19 models. Simulated rainfall amount is underestimated than the observed and onset and termination of rainy season are earlier in the simulation. Compared with evolution timing, duration of the rainy season is uncertain with large model spread. This area-averaged analysis results mix relative differences among the models. All model show similarity in the underestimated rainfall, but there are quite large difference in dynamic and thermodynamic processes. The model difference is shown in horizontal distribution analysis. BEST and WORST group is selected based on skill score. BEST shows better performance in northward movement of the rain band, summer monsoon domain. Especially, meridional gradient of equivalent potential temperature and low-level circulation for evolving frontal system is quite well captured in BEST. According to RCP8.5, CMIP5 projects earlier onset, delayed termination and longer duration of the rainy season with increasing rainfall amount at the end of 21st century. BEST and WORST shows similar projection for the rainy season evolution timing, meanwhile there are large discrepancy in thermodynamic structure. BEST and WORST in future projection are different in moisture flux, vertical structure of equivalent potential temperature and the subsequent unstable changes in the conditional instability.

• 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.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.267-268
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• 2010

Many countries has been interested in studying the East Sea to look ahead into the world oceans' future, since the East Sea has been known as a miniature ocean. In this respect, PICES decided the East Asian Seas Time-series (EAST) studies, and the East Sea as the first subject (EAST-I). Since 2006 Ministry of Land, Transport & Maritime Affairs, Korea has supported the Korean EAST-I program. Through the Korean EAST-I program, 44 research papers were published in various scientific journals. This special issue contains 6 research articles including results from the interdisciplinary observation in the summer, 2008. Those articles cover the entire East Sea from the Korea Strait to the Japan Basin, and also cover the studies of the euphotic layer to the bottom sediment. MLTM and KIMST have provided full support to EAST-I program. KHOA carried out the joint cruises in the Ulleung Basin. Those are deeply appreciated. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the editorial board of Ocean & Polar Research.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2012

Through a statistical change-point analysis, this study found that Korea landfalling tropical cyclone (TC) frequency has increased rapidly since 1981. This increase is due to the following phenomenon. When anomalous cyclone is developed in the East Asian continent, anomalous anticyclone is reinforced in the western Pacific, which is related to the eastward shift of western North Pacific high, and thus anomalous southerly is formed to Korea from low-latitudes. This anomalous southerly plays an important role as steering flow in moving TCs toward Korea. To examine the cause of the development of anomalous cyclone in the East Asian continent, this study analyzed the water equivalent of accumulated snow depth during the preceding spring (March to May). As a result, less snow depth is observed in most regions of the East Asian continent than before 1981. Therefore, anomalous cyclone in the East Asian continent in summer can be reinforced by the land heating from the preceding spring and then the steering flow of anomalous southerly that moves TCs toward Korea can be also developed to Korea from low-latitudes in summer.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.541-552
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• 2010

Geochemical and physical investigations such as ${\delta}^{13}C$ isotope ratio, carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratio, magnetic susceptibility (MS), and particle size analyses were carried out on the estuarine tidal flat sediments from the west coast of Korea in order to reconstruct the East Asian summer monsoon variability during the late Pleistocene and Holocene Our results indicated that the summer monsoon probably peaked around 7,700-7,800 yr BP and then started to decline about 7,400 yr BP in the Korean peninsular, and that the monsoon was relatively weak between 24,000-24,500 yr BP but relatively strong between 18,500-19,500 yr BP during the Last Glacial Maximum. Our estuarine geochemical data have proven to be valuable as a new proxy for detecting the shifts in monsoon strength. This new evidence will be helpful, especially for Korean paleoenvironmental studies with few proxy data archives.