• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.187-194
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• 2011

This study analyzed the A1B climate change scenario provided by National Institute of Meteorological Research (NIMR), Korea, to investigate potential climate changes in watersheds of 15 multi-purpose dams in South Korea. The A1B climate change scenario is produced by Regional Climate Model (RCM) with 27 km horizontal grid spacings using a one-way nesting technique with Global Climate Model (GCM). Relative to present climate conditions (1971~ 2000), the modeled 10-year averaged daily temperatures at the watersheds of the 15 multi-purpose dams continuously increased to year 2100, whereas precipitation changes were varied regionally (north, central, and south regions of South Korea). At two watersheds located in Gangwon-province (north region), the modeled temporal variations of precipitation rapidly increased in the 2090's after a slow decrease that had occurred since the 2050's. At seven watersheds in the central region, including Gyeongsangbuk-province to Jeollanam-province, the modeled temporal variations of precipitation increase showed 10-year periodic changes. At six watersheds in the south region, the modeled temporal variations of precipitation increased since the 2070's after a rapid decrease in the 2060's. Compared to the climate conditions of the late of 20th century (1971~2000), the number of rainy days and precipitation intensity increased (3% and 6~12%, respectively) in the late 21st century (2071~2100). The frequency of precipitation events tended to increase with precipitation intensity in all regions. The frequency of heavy precipitation events (>50 mm $d^{-1}$) increased with >100% in the north region, 60~100% in the central region, and 20~60% in the south region.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.43-45
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• 2021

The short-term quantitative precipitation prediction (QPF) system is important socially and economically to prevent damage from severe weather. Recently, many studies for short-term QPF model applying the Deep Neural Network (DNN) has been conducted. These studies require the sophisticated pre-processing because the mistreatment of various and vast meteorological data sets leads to lower performance of QPF. Especially, for more accurate prediction of the non-linear trends in precipitation, the dataset needs to be carefully handled based on the physical and dynamical understands the data. Thereby, this paper proposes the following approaches: i) refining and combining major factors (weather radar, terrain, air temperature, and so on) related to precipitation development in order to construct training data for pattern analysis of precipitation; ii) producing predicted precipitation fields based on Convolutional with ConvLSTM. The proposed algorithm was evaluated by rainfall events in 2020. It is outperformed in the magnitude and strength of precipitation, and clearly predicted non-linear pattern of precipitation. The algorithm can be useful as a forecasting tool for preventing severe weather.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.51 no.10
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• pp.875-886
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• 2018

This study evaluated drought severity by bivariate frequency analysis using drought magnitude and precipitation deficit. A drought event was defined by Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the precipitation deficit was estimated using reference precipitation corresponding to the SPI -1. In previous studies, drought magnitude and duration were used for bivariate frequency analysis. However, since these two variables have a largely linear relationship, extensibility of drought information is not great compared to the univariate frequency analysis for each variable. In the case of drought in 2015, return periods of 'drought magnitude-precipitation deficit' in the Seoul, Yangpyeong, and Chungju indicated severe drought over 300 years. However, the result of 'drought magnitude-duration' showed a significant difference by evaluating the return period of about 10, 50, and 50 years. Although a drought including the rainy season was seriously lacking in precipitation, drought magnitude did not adequately represent the severity of the absolute lack of precipitation. This showed that there is a limit to expressing the actual severity of drought. The results of frequency analysis for 'drought magnitude-precipitation deficit' include the absolute deficit of precipitation information, so which could consider being a useful indicator to cope with drought.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.1205-1214
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• 2021

Precipitation is one of a major causes of landslides by rising of pore water pressure, which leads to fluctuations of soil strength and stress. For this reason, precipitation is the most frequently used to determine the landslide thresholds. However, using only precipitation has limitations in predicting and estimating slope stability quantitatively for reducing false alarm events. On the other hand, Soil Moisture (SM) has been used for calculating slope stability in many studies since it is directly related to pore water pressure than precipitation. Therefore, this study attempted to evaluate the appropriateness of applying soil moisture in determining the landslide threshold. First, the reactivity of soil saturation level to precipitation was identified through time-series analysis. The precipitation threshold was calculated using daily precipitation (P_daily) and the Antecedent Precipitation Index (API), and the hydrological threshold was calculated using daily precipitation and soil saturation level. Using a contingency table, these two thresholds were assessed qualitatively. In results, compared to P_daily only threshold, Goesan showed an improvement of 75% (P_daily + API) and 42% (P_daily + SM) and Changsu showed an improvement of 33% (P_daily + API) and 44% (P_daily + SM), respectively. Both API and SM effectively enhanced the Critical Success Index (CSI) and reduced the False Alarm Rate (FAR). In the future, studies such as calculating rainfall intensity required to cause/trigger landslides through soil saturation level or estimating rainfall resistance according to the soil saturation level are expected to contribute to improving landslide prediction accuracy.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.111-120
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• 2022

The concept of soil moisture memory was used as a method for quantifying the function of soil to control water flow, which evaluates the average residence time of precipitation. In order to characterize the soil moisture memory, a new measurement index called stored precipitation fraction (F_p(f)) was used by tracking the increments in soil moisture by the precipitation event. In this study, the temporal and spatial distribution of soil moisture memory was evaluated along with the slope and soil characteristics of the surface (0~5 cm) soil by using satellite- and model-based precipitation and soil moisture in the Korean peninsula, from 2019 to 2020. The spatial deviation of the soil moisture memory was large as the stored precipitation fraction in the soil decreased preferentially along the mountain range at the beginning (after 3 hours), and the deviation decreased overall after 24 hours. The stored precipitation fraction in the soil clearly decreased as the slope increased, and the effect of drainage of water in the soil according to the composition ratio of the soil particle size was also shown. In addition, average soil moisture contributed to the increase and decrease of hydraulic conductivity, and the rate of rainfall transfer to the depths affected the stored precipitation fraction. It is expected that the results of this study will greatly contribute in clarifying the relationship between soil moisture memory and surface characteristics (slope, soil characteristics) and understanding spatio-temporal variation of soil moisture.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.2B
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• pp.141-153
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• 2009

The occurrence causes of the extreme rainfall to happen in Korea can be distinguished with the typhoons and local downpours. The typhoon events attacked irregularly to induce the heavy rainfall, and the local downpour events mean a seasonal rain front and a local rainfall. Almost every year, the typhoons and local downpours that induced a heavy precipitation be generated extreme disasters like a flooding. Consequently, in this research, There were distinguished the causes of heavy rainfall events with the typhoons and the local downpours at Korea. Also, probability precipitation was computed according to the causes of the local downpour events. An evaluation of local downpours can be used for analysis of heavy rainfall event in short period like a flash flood. The methods of calculation of probability precipitation used the parametric frequency analysis and the Empirical Simulation Technique (EST). The correlation analysis was computed between annual maximum precipitation by local downpour events and sea surface temperature, moisture index for composition of input vectors. At the results of correlation analysis, there were revealed that the relations closely between annual maximum precipitation and sea surface temperature. Also, probability precipitation using EST are bigger than probability precipitation of frequency analysis on west-middle areas in Korea. Therefore, region of west-middle in Korea should prepare the extreme precipitation by local downpour events.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.237-250
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• 2005

To investigate the air mass modification related with Yeongdong Heavy snowfall events, we examined sensible and latent heat fluxes on the East Sea, the energy exchange between atmosphere and ocean in this study. Sensible and latent heats were calculated by a bulk aerodynamic method, in which NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and NOAA/AVHRR weekly SST data with high resolution were used. Among winter precipitation events in the Yeongdong region, 19 heavy precipitation events $(1995{\sim}2001)$ were selected and classified into three types (mountain, cold-coastal, and warm types). Mountain-type precipitation shows highly positive anomalies of sensible and latent heats over the southwestern part of the East Set When separating them into the two components due to variability of wind and temperature/ specific Humidity, it is shown that the wind components are dominant. Cold-coastal-type precipitation also shows strong positive anomalies of sensible and latent heats over the northern part and over the central-northern part of the East Sea, respectively. It is shown that the sensible heat anomalies are caused mostly by the decrease of surface air temperature. So it can be explained that cold-coastal-type precipitation is closely related with the air mass modification due to cold air advection over warm ocean surface. But in warm-type precipitation, negative anomalies are found in the sensible and latent heat distributions. From this result, it may be postulated that warm-type precipitation is affected by the internal process of the atmosphere rather than the atmosphere-ocean interaction.

• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.74-79
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• 2005

Recently, several attempts have been made to provide reasonable information on unusual severe weather phenomena such as tolerant heavy rains and very wild typhoons. Quantitative precipitation forecasts and probabilistic quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs and PQPFs, respectively) might be one of the most promising methodologies for early warning on the flesh floods because those diagnostic precipitation models require less computational resources than fine-mesh full-dynamics non-hydrostatic mesoscale model. The diagnostic rainfall model used in this study is the named QPM(Quantitative Precipitation Model), which calculates the rainfall by considering the effect of small-scale topography which is not treated in the mesoscale model. We examine the capability of probabilistic diagnostic rainfall model in terms of how well represented the observed several rainfall events and what is the most optimistic resolution of the mesoscale model in which diagnostic rainfall model is nested. Also, we examine the integration time to provide reasonable fine-mesh rainfall information. When we apply this QPM directly to 27 km mesh meso-scale model (called as M27-Q3), it takes about 15 min. while it takes about 87 min. to get the same resolution precipitation information with full dynamic downscaling method (called M27-9-3). The quality of precipitation forecast by M27-Q3 is quite comparable with the results of M27-9-3 with reasonable threshold value for precipitation. Based on a series of examination we may conclude that the proosed QPM has a capability to provide fine-mesh rainfall information in terms of time and accuracy compared to full dynamical fine-mesh meso-scale model.

• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.257-271
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to examine weather modification by urbanization and human activities. The characteristics of the urban heat island (UHI) and precipitation in Seoul metropolitan area of Korea are investigated to demonstrate that cities can change or modify local and nearby weather and climate, and to confirm that cities can initiate convection, change the behavior of convective precipitation, and enhance downstream precipitation. The data used in this study are surface meteorological station data observed in Seoul and its nearby 5 cities for the period of 1960 to 2009, and 162 Automatic Weather System stations data observed in the Seoul metropolitan area from 1998 to 2009. Air temperature and precipitation amount tend to increase with time, and relative humidity decreases because of urbanization. Similar to previous studies for other cities, the average maximum UHI is weakest in summer and is strong in autumn and winter, and the maximum UHI intensity is more frequently observed in the nighttime than in the daytime, decreases with increasing wind speed, and is enhanced for clear skies. Relatively warm regions extend in the east-west direction and relatively cold regions are located near the northern and southern mountains inside Seoul. The satellite cities in the outskirts of Seoul have been rapidly built up in recent years, thus exhibiting increases in near-surface air temperature. The yearly precipitation amount during the last 50 years is increased with time but rainy days are decreased. The heavy rainfall events of more than $20mm\;hr^{-1}$ increases with time. The substantial changes observed in precipitation in Seoul seem to be linked with the accelerated increase in the urban sprawl in recent decades which in turn has induced an intensification of the UHI effect and enhanced downstream precipitation. We also found that the frequency of intense rain showers has increased in Seoul metropolitan area.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.202-211
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• 2014

In this study, long-term rainfall data with irregular spatial distribution in Seoul, Korea, were separated into individual precipitation events by the inter-event time definition of 6 hours. Precipitation washout of $PM_{10}$ and $NO_2$ concentrations in the air considering various complex factors were analyzed quantitatively. Concentrations of $PM_{10}$ and $NO_2$ in the atmosphere were lower under condition of rainfall compared to that of non-precipitation, and a noticeable difference in average $PM_{10}$ concentrations was observed. The reduction of concentrations of $PM_{10}$ and $NO_2$ by rainfall monitored at road-side air monitoring sites was also lower than that of urban air monitoring sites due to continuous pollutant emissions by transportation sources. Meanwhile, a relatively smaller reduction of average $PM_{10}$ concentration in the atmosphere was observed under conditions of light rainfall below 1 mm, presumably because the impact of pollutant emission was higher than that of precipitation scavenging effect, whereas an obvious reduction of pollutants was shown under conditions of rainfall greater than 1 mm. A log-shaped regression equation was most suitable for the expression of pollutant reduction by precipitation amount. In urban areas, a lower correlation between precipitation and reduction of $NO_2$ concentration was also observed due to the mobile emission effect.