• Journal of Wetlands Research
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.353-365
• /
• 2023

The effects of climate change on green infrastructure and environmental media remain uncertain and context-specific despite numerous climate projections globally. In this study, the extreme weather conditions in seven major cities in South Korea were characterized through statistical analysis of 20-year daily meteorological data extracted fro m the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). Additionally, the impacts of extreme weather on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) were determined through a comprehensive review. The results of the statistical analysis and comprehensive review revealed the studied cities are potentially vulnerable to varying extreme weather conditions, depending on geographic location, surface imperviousness, and local weather patterns. Temperature extremes were seen as potential threats to the resilience of NbS in Seoul, as both the highest maximum and lowest minimum temperatures were observed in the mentioned city. Moreover, extreme values for precipitation and maximum wind speed were observed in cities from the southern part of South Korea, particularly Busan, Ulsan, and Jeju. It was also found that extremely low temperatures induce the most impact on the resilience of NbS and environmental media. Extremely cold conditions were identified to reduce the pollutant removal efficiency of biochar, sand, gravel, and woodchip, as well as the nutrient uptake capabilities of constructed wetlands (CWs). In response to the negative impacts of extreme weather on the effectiveness of NbS, several adaptation strategies, such as the addition of shading and insulation systems, were also identified in this study. The results of this study are seen as beneficial to improving the resilience of NbS in South Korea and other locations with similar climate characteristics.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
• /
• v.1
• /
• pp.150-152
• /
• 2006

The DISCOVER Project (${\underline{D}}istributed$ ${\underline{I}}nformation$ ${\underline{S}}ervices$ for ${\underline{C}}limate$ and ${\underline{O}}cean$ products and ${\underline{V}}isualizations$ for ${\underline{E}}arth$ ${\underline{R}}esearch$) is a NASA funded Earth Science REASoN project that strives to provide highly accurate, carefully calibrated, long-term climate data records and near-real-time ocean products suitable for the most demanding Earth research applications via easy-to-use display and data access tools. A key element of DISCOVER is the merging of data from the multiple sensors on multiple platforms into geophysical data sets consistent in both time and space. The project is a follow-on to the SSM/I Pathfinder and Passive Microwave ESIP projects which pioneered the simultaneous retrieval of sea surface temperature, surface wind speed, columnar water vapor, cloud liquid water content, and rain rate from SSM/I and TMI observations. The ocean products available through DISCOVER are derived from multi-sensor observations combined into daily products and a consistent multi-decadal climate time series. The DISCOVER team has a strong track record in identifying and removing unexpected sources of systematic error in radiometric measurements, including misspecification of SSM/I pointing geometry, the slightly emissive TMI antenna, and problems with the hot calibration source on AMSR-E. This in-depth experience with inter-calibration is absolutely essential for achieving our objective of merging multi-sensor observations into consistent data sets. Extreme care in satellite inter-calibration and commonality of geophysical algorithms is applied to all sensors. This presentation will introduce the DISCOVER products currently available from the web site, http://www.discover-earth.org and provide examples of the scientific application of both the diurnally corrected optimally interpolated global sea surface temperature product and the 4x-daily global microwave water vapor product.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.1437-1445
• /
• 2017

This paper suggests a temperature guidance which must be addressed in the preparation of specifications for military equipment used in ocean/coastal environment of the Korean peninsula. It would often be costly to design materiel to operate under the most extreme environmental conditions ever recorded. Therefore, military planners usually accept equipments designed to operate under environmental stresses for all the time except a certain small percentage of the time. In this study, an 1-percent frequency of occurrence is recommended. Pohang and Shineiju are chosen to represent the hottest and coldest regions, respectively, based on surface weather observations among 28 costal regions from 1904 to 2015. The 1st and 99th percentile temperatures for Pohang and Shineiju are $37.7^{\circ}C$ and $-23.7^{\circ}C$, respectively. Diurnal cycles, including solar radiation, relative humidity and wind-speed are also provided.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.523-532
• /
• 2014

In this study, thermal tropopause height defined from WMO (World Meteorological Organization) using temperature profile derived from Advance Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A; hereafter named AMSU) onboard EOS (Earth Observing System) Aqua satellite is retrieved. The temperature profile of AMSU was validated by comparison with the radiosonde data observed at Osan weather station. The validation in the upper atmosphere from 500 to 100 hPa pressure level showed that correlation coefficients were in the range of 0.85~0.97 and the bias was less than 1 K with Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of ~3 K. Thermal tropopause height was retrieved by using AMSU temperature profile. The bias and RMSE were found to be -5~ -37 hPa and 45~67 hPa, respectively. Correlation coefficients were in the range of 0.5 to 0.7. We also analyzed the change of tropopause height and temperature in middle troposphere in the extreme heavy rain event (23 October, 2003) associated with tropopause folding. As a result, the distinct descent of tropopause height and temperature decrease of ~8 K at 500 hPa altitude were observed at the hour that maximum precipitation and maximum wind speed occurred. These results were consistent with ERA (ECMWF Reanalysis)-Interim data (potential vorticity, temperature) in time and space.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 2019

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) predicted that recent extreme hydrological events would affect water quality and aggravate various forms of water pollution. To analyze changes in water quality due to future climate change, input data (precipitation, average temperature, relative humidity, average wind speed and sunlight) were established using the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5 climate change scenario suggested by the AR5 and calculated the future runoff for each target period (Reference:1989-2015; I: 2016-2040; II: 2041-2070; and III: 2071-2099) using the semi-distributed land use-based runoff processes (SLURP) model. Meteorological factors that affect water quality (precipitation, temperature and runoff) were inputted into the multiple linear regression analysis (MLRA) and artificial neural network (ANN) models to analyze water quality data, dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), total nitrogen (T-N) and total phosphorus (T-P). Future water quality prediction of the Anseongcheon River basin shows that DO at Gongdo station in the river will drop by 35% in autumn by the end of the $21^{st}$ century and that BOD, COD and SS will increase by 36%, 20% and 42%, respectively. Analysis revealed that the oxygen demand at Dongyeongyo station will decrease by 17% in summer and BOD, COD and SS will increase by 30%, 12% and 17%, respectively. This study suggests that there is a need to continuously monitor the water quality of the Anseongcheon River basin for long-term management. A more reliable prediction of future water quality will be achieved if various social scenarios and climate data are taken into consideration.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.54 no.10
• /
• pp.795-805
• /
• 2021

In this study, after developing an LSTM-based deep learning model for estimating daily runoff in the Soyang River Dam basin, the accuracy of the model for various combinations of model structure and input data was investigated. A model was built based on the database consisting of average daily precipitation, average daily temperature, average daily wind speed (input up to here), and daily average flow rate (output) during the first 12 years (1997.1.1-2008.12.31). The Nash-Sutcliffe Model Efficiency Coefficient (NSE) and RMSE were examined for validation using the flow discharge data of the later 12 years (2009.1.1-2020.12.31). The combination that showed the highest accuracy was the case in which all possible input data (12 years of daily precipitation, weather temperature, wind speed) were used on the LSTM model structure with 64 hidden units. The NSE and RMSE of the verification period were 0.862 and 76.8 m³/s, respectively. When the number of hidden units of LSTM exceeds 500, the performance degradation of the model due to overfitting begins to appear, and when the number of hidden units exceeds 1000, the overfitting problem becomes prominent. A model with very high performance (NSE=0.8~0.84) could be obtained when only 12 years of daily precipitation was used for model training. A model with reasonably high performance (NSE=0.63-0.85) when only one year of input data was used for model training. In particular, an accurate model (NSE=0.85) could be obtained if the one year of training data contains a wide magnitude of flow events such as extreme flow and droughts as well as normal events. If the training data includes both the normal and extreme flow rates, input data that is longer than 5 years did not significantly improve the model performance.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.41 no.2 s.113
• /
• pp.168-187
• /
• 2006

Windy meteorological conditions and dried fire fuels due to higher atmospheric instability and dryness in the lower troposphere can exacerbate fire controls and result in more losses of forest resources and residential properties due to enhanced large wildland fires. Long-term (1979-2005) climatology of the Haines Index reconstructed in this study reveals that spatial patterns and intra-annual variability of the atmospheric instability and dryness in the lower troposphere affect the frequency of wildland fire incidences over the Korean Peninsula. Exponential regression models verify that daily high Haines Index and its monthly frequency has statistically significant correlations with the frequency of the wildland fire occurrences during the fire season (December-April) in South Korea. According to the climatic maps of the Haines Index created by the Geographic Information System (GIS) using the Digital Elevation Model (DEM), the lowlands below 500m from the mean sea level in the northwestern regions of the Korean Peninsula demonstrates the high frequency of the Haines Index equal to or greater than five in April and May. The annual frequency of the high Haines Index represents an increasing trend across the Korean Peninsula since the mid-1990s, particularly in Gyeongsangbuk-do and along the eastern coastal areas. The composite of synoptic weather maps at 500hPa for extreme events, in which the high Haines Index lasted for several days consecutively, illustrates that the cold low pressure system developed around the Sea of Okhotsk in the extreme event period enhances the pressure gradient and westerly wind speed over the Korean Peninsula. These results demonstrate the need for further consideration of the spatial-temporal characteristics of vertical atmospheric components, such as atmospheric instability and dryness, in the current Korean fire prediction system.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.47 no.11
• /
• pp.1039-1050
• /
• 2014

The goal of this study is to demonstrate the diversity of model performance for various climatic elements and indicators. We evaluated the skills of the most advanced 17 General Circulation Models (GCMs) i.e., CMIP5 (Climate Model Inter-comparison project, phase 5) climate models in reproducing retrospective climatology from 1950 to 2000 over the Southeast US for the key climatic elements important in the hydrological and agricultural perspectives (i.e., precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, and wind speed). The biases of raw CMIP5 GCMs were estimated for 16 different climatic indicators that imply mean climatology, temporal variability, extreme frequency, etc. using a grid-based observational dataset as reference. Based on the error (RMSE) and correlation (R) of GCM outputs, the error-based GCM ranks were assigned on average over the indicators. Overall, the GCMs showed much better accuracy in representing mean climatology of temperature comparing to other elements whereas few GCM showed acceptable skills for precipitation. It was also found that the model skills and ranks would be substantially different by the climatic elements, error statistics applied for evaluation, and indicators as well. This study presents significance of GCM uncertainty and the needs of considering rational strategies for climate model evaluation and selection.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.492-501
• /
• 2007

Coastal disasters have become one of the most important issues in every coastal country. In Korea, coastal disasters such as storm surge, sea level rise and extreme weather have placed many coastal regions in danger of being exposed or damaged during subsequent storms and gradual shoreline retreat. A storm surge is an onshore gush of water associated with a tow pressure weather system, typically in typhoon season. However, it is very difficult to predict storm surge height and inundation due to the irregularity of the course and intensity of a typhoon. To provide a new scheme of typhoon damage prediction model, the scenario which changes the central pressure, the maximum wind radius, the track and the proceeding speed by corresponding previous typhoon database, was composed. The virtual typhoon scenario database was constructed with individual scenario simulation and evaluation, in which it extracted the result from the scenario database of information of the hereafter typhoon and information due to climate change. This virtual typhoon scenario database will apply damage prediction information about a typhoon. This study performed construction and analysis of the simulation system with the storm surge/coastal inundation model at Masan coastal areas, and applied method for predicting using the scenario of the storm surge.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.54 no.8
• /
• pp.577-587
• /
• 2021

Drought is generally considered to be a natural disaster caused by accumulated water shortages over a long period of time, taking months or years and slowly occurring. However, climate change has led to rapid changes in weather and environmental factors that directly affect agriculture, and extreme weather conditions have led to an increase in the frequency of rapidly developing droughts within weeks to months. This phenomenon is defined as 'Flash Drought', which is caused by an increase in surface temperature over a relatively short period of time and abnormally low and rapidly decreasing soil moisture. The detection and analysis of flash drought is essential because it has a significant impact on agriculture and natural ecosystems, and its impacts are associated with agricultural drought impacts. In South Korea, there is no clear definition of flash drought, so the purpose of this study is to identify and analyze its characteristics. In this study, flash drought detection condition was presented based on the satellite-derived drought index Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) from 2014 to 2018. ESI is used as an early warning indicator for rapidly-occurring flash drought a short period of time due to its similar relationship with reduced soil moisture content, lack of precipitation, increased evaporative demand due to low humidity, high temperature, and strong winds. The flash droughts were analyzed using hydrometeorological characteristics by comparing Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), soil moisture, maximum temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and precipitation. The correlation was analyzed based on the 8 weeks prior to the occurrence of the flash drought, and in most cases, a high correlation of 0.8(-0.8) or higher(lower) was expressed for ESI and SPI, soil moisture, and maximum temperature.