• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.329-339
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• 2022

Better understanding the mechanism of black ice occurrence on the road in winter is necessary to reduce the socio-economic damage it causes. In this study, intensive observations of road weather elements and surface information under the influence of synoptic high-pressure patterns (22^nd December, 2020 and 29^th January, and 25^th February, 2021) were carried out using a mobile observation vehicle. We found that temperature and road surface temperature change is significantly influenced by observation time, altitude and structure of the road, surrounding terrain, and traffic volume, especially in tunnels and bridges. In addition, even if the spatial distribution of temperature and road surface temperature for the entire observation route is similar, there is a difference between air and road surface temperatures due to the influence of current weather conditions. The observed road temperature, air temperature and air pressure in Nongong Bridge were significantly different to other fixed road weather observation points.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.169-181
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• 2020

We conducted a study on the impact of observation station density; this was done in order to enable the accurate estimation of spatial meteorological variables. The purpose of this study is to help operate an efficient observation network by examining distributions of temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed in a test area of a three-dimensional meteorological observation project in the Yeongdong region in 2019. For our analysis, we grouped the observation stations as follows: 41 stations (for Step 4), 34 stations (for Step 3), 17 stations (for Step 2), and 10 stations (for Step 1). Grid values were interpolated using the kriging method. We compared the spatial accuracy of the estimated meteorological grid by using station density. The effect of increased observation network density varied and was dependent on meteorological variables and weather conditions. The temperature is sufficient for the current weather observation network (featuring an average distance about 9.30 km between stations), and the relative humidity is sufficient when the average distance between stations is about 5.04 km. However, it is recommended that all observation networks, with an average distance of approximately 4.59 km between stations, be utilized for monitoring wind speed. In addition, this also enables the operation of an effective observation network through the classification of outliers.

• Atmosphere
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.307-322
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• 2022

A drone has recently got attention as an instrument for weather observation in lower atmosphere because it can produce the high spatiotemporal resolution weather data even though the weather phenomenon is inaccessible. Sea fog is a weather phenomenon occurred in lower atmosphere, and has observational limitations because it occurs on the sea. Therefore, goal of this study is to analyze the vertical structures about inflow, development and dispersion of sea fog using the high-resolution weather data with the meteorological sensor-equipped drone. This study observed sea fogs in the west coast of the Korean peninsula from March to October 2021 and investigated one sea fog inflowed into the coast on June 8th 2021. θ_e - q_v diagrams (θ_e: equivalent potential temperature, q_v: water vapor ratio) and vertical wind structures were analyzed. At inflow of sea fog, moist adiabatically stable layer was formed in 0-300 m and prevailing wind was switched from south-southwesterly to west-southwesterly under 120 m. Both changes are favorable for sea fog on the location. θ_e and q_v plummeted in a layer 0-183 m. The inflowed sea fog developed from 183 m to 327 m by mixing with ambient atmosphere on top of sea fog. Also, strong mechanical turbulence near ground drove a vertical mixing under stable layer. At dispersion of sea fog, as θ_e on ground gradually increased, air condition was changed to neutral. Evaporation occurred on both bottom and top in sea fog. These results induced dissipation of sea fog.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.183-193
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• 2020

In this study, Yeongdong cold air damming (YCAD) cases that occur in winters have been selected using automatic weather station data of the Yeongdong region of Korea. The vertical and horizontal scales of YCAD were analyzed using rawinsonde and numerical weather model. YCAD occurred in two typical synoptic patterns such that low pressure and trough systems crossing and passing over Korea (low crossing type: LC and low passing type: LP). When the Siberian high does not expand enough to the Korean peninsula, low pressure and trough systems are likely to move over Korea. Eventually this could lead to surface temperature (3.1℃) higher during YCAD than the average in the winter season (1.6℃). The surface temperature during YCAD, however, was decrease by 1.3℃. The cold air layer was elevated around 120 m~450 m for LP-type. For LC-type, the cold layer were found at less than approximately 400 m and over 1,000 m, which could be thought of combined phenomena with synoptic and local weather forcing. The cross-sectional analysis results indicate the accumulation of cold air on the east mountain slope. Additionally, the north or northeasterly winds turned to the northwesterly wind near the coast in all cases. The horizontal wind turning point of LC-type was farther from the top of the mountain (52.2 km~71.5 km) than that of LP-type (20.0 km~43.0 km).

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.7-14
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• 2023

Recently, the importance of impact-based forecasting has increased along with the socio-economic impact of severe weather have emerged. As news articles contain unconstructed information closely related to the people's life, this study developed and evaluated a binary classification algorithm about snowfall damage information by using media articles text mining. We collected news articles during 2009 to 2021 which containing 'heavy snow' in its body context and labelled whether each article correspond to specific damage fields such as car accident. To develop a classifier, we proposed a probability-based classifier based on the ratio of the two conditional probabilities, which is defined as I/O Ratio in this study. During the construction process, we also adopted the n-gram approach to consider contextual meaning of each keyword. The accuracy of the classifier was 75%, supporting the possibility of application of news big data to the impact-based forecasting. We expect the performance of the classifier will be improve in the further research as the various training data is accumulated. The result of this study can be readily expanded by applying the same methodology to other disasters in the future. Furthermore, the result of this study can reduce social and economic damage of high impact weather by supporting the establishment of an integrated meteorological decision support system.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2020

In this study, the climatological spatio-temporal variation of strong wind and gust wind in Korea during the period from 1993 to 2018 was analyzed using daily maximum wind speed and daily maximum instantaneous wind speed data recorded at 61 observations. Strong wind and gust wind were defined as 14 m s^-1 and 20 m s^-1, which are the same as the KMA's criteria of special weather report. The frequency of strong wind and gust wind occurrence was divided into regions with the higher 25 percent (Group A) and the lower 75 percent (Group B). The annual frequency of strong wind and gust wind occurrence tended to be decreased in most parts of the Korean peninsula. In Group A with stations located at coastal region, strong wind and gust wind occurred most frequently in winter with higher frequency at 1200~1600 LST and 2300~2400 LST due to influence of East Asian winter monsoon. In addition, a marked decreasing trend throughout the four seasons was shown at Daegwallyeong, Gunsan and Wando observations. In contrast, it can be found in Group B that the monthly frequency of strong wind and wind gust occurrence was higher in August and September by effect of typhoon and hourly frequency was higher from 1200 LST to 1800 LST.

• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.159-171
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• 2014

This study investigated the temporal and spatial characteristics of summertime (June-August) precipitation over Korean peninsula, using Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA)is Automated Synoptic Observing System (ASOS) data for the period of 1973-2010 and Automatic Weather System (AWS) data for the period of 1998-2010.The authors looked through climatological features of the summertime precipitation, then examined the degree of locality of the precipitation, and probable precipitation amount and its return period of 100 years (i.e., an extreme precipitation event). The amount of monthly total precipitation showed increasing trends for all the summer months during the investigated 38-year period. In particular, the increasing trends were more significant for the months of July and August. The increasing trend of July was seen to be more attributable to the increase of precipitation intensity than that of frequency, while the increasing trend of August was seen to be played more importantly by the increase of the precipitation frequency. The e-folding distance, which is calculated using the correlation of the precipitation at the reference station with those at all other stations, revealed that it is August that has the highest locality of hourly precipitation, indicating higher potential of localized heavy rainfall in August compared to other summer months. More localized precipitation was observed over the western parts of the Korean peninsula where terrain is relatively smooth. Using the 38-years long series of maximum daily and hourly precipitation as input for FARD2006 (Frequency Analysis of Rainfall Data Program 2006), it was revealed that precipitation events with either 360 mm $day^{-1}$ or 80 mm $h^{-1}$ can occur with the return period of 100 years over the Korean Peninsula.

• Atmosphere
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.41-54
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• 2004

In this study, a brief overview on a WMO/WWRP program - The Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment (THORPEX) and discussions on perspectives and potential benefits of Asian countries are provided. THORPEX is aimed at accelerating improvements in the accuracy of 1 to 14-day high-impact weather forecasts with research objectives of: 1) predictability and dynamical processes; 2) observing systems; 3) data assimilation and observing strategies; and 4) societal and economic applications. Direct benefits of Asian countries from THORPEX include improvement of: 1) forecast skills in global models, which exerts positive impact on mesoscale forecasts; 2) typhoon forecasts through dropwindsonde observations; and 3) forecast skills for high-impact weather systems via increased observations in neighboring countries. Various indirect benefits for scientific researches are also discussed. Extensive adaptive observation studies are recommended for all high-impact weather systems coming into the Korean peninsula, and enhancement of observations in the highly sensitive regions for the forecast error growth is required to improve forecast skills in the peninsula, possibly through international collaborations with neighboring countries.

• Atmosphere
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.485-500
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• 2013

This study conducted WRF-Fire simulations in order to investigate sensitivities of the resolution of fire fuel and terrain data sets, and the surface wind to simulated fire area. The sensitivity simulations were consisted of 8 different WRF-Fire runs, each of which used different combination of data sets of fire fuel and terrain with different resolution. From the results it was turned out that the surface wind was most sensitive. The next was fire fuel and then fire terrain. Unfortunately, every run produced too much fire area. In other words no simulations succeeded in simulating such proper fire area so as for the WRF-Fire to be used realistically. It was verified that the errors of fire area from each runs were contributed by 41%, 53%, and 6% from surface wind, fire fuel, and fire terrain, respectively. Finally this study suggested that the selection of Anderson fuel category in the area of interest seemed to be very critical in the performance of WRF-Fire simulations.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.765-784
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• 2019

The synoptic structural characteristics associated with heavy snowfall (Bukgangneung: 31.3 cm) that occurred in the Yeongdong area on 20 January 2017 was investigated using surface and upper-level weather charts, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis data, radiosonde data, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud product. The cold dome and warm trough of approximately 500 hPa appeared with tropopause folding. As a result, cold and dry air penetrated into the middle and upper levels. At this time, the enhanced cyclonic potential vorticity caused strong baroclinicity, resulting in the sudden development of low pressure at the surface. Under the synoptic structure, localized heavy snowfall occurred in the Yeongdong area within a short time. These results can be confirmed from the vertical analysis of radiosonde data and the characteristics of the MODIS cloud product.