• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.55-65
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• 2017

This study investigates how Eurasian snow cover in spring (March and April) is associated with Korean temperature during summer (June-July-August). Two leading modes of Eurasian snow cover variability in spring for 1979~2015 are obtained by Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis. The first EOF mode of Eurasian snow cover is characterized by a zonally elongated pattern over the whole Eurasian region and its principal component is more correlated with Korean temperature during June. On the other hand, the second EOF mode of Eurasian snow cover is characterized by an east-west dipole-like pattern, showing positive anomalies over eastern Eurasian region and negative anomalies over western Eurasian region. This dipole-like pattern is related with Korean temperature during August. The first leading mode of Eurasian snow cover is associated with anomalous high (low) pressure over Korea (Sea of Okhotsk) during June, which might be induced by much evaporation of soil moisture in Eurasia during March. On the other hand, the second mode of Eurasian snow cover is associated with a wave train resembling with Eurasian (EU)-like pattern in relation to the Atlantic sea surface temperature forcing, leading to the anomalous high pressure over Korea during August. Understanding these two leading modes of snow cover in Eurasian continent in spring may contribute to predict Korean summer temperature.

• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.109-121
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• 2011

This study revisits the definition of Changma, which is the major rainy season in Korea and corresponds to a regional component of the East Asian summer monsoon system. In spite of several decades of researches on Changma, questions still remain on many aspects of Changma that include its proper definition, determination of its onset and retreat, and relevant large-scale dynamical and thermodynamical features. Therefore, this study clarifies the definition of Changma (which is a starting point for the study of interannual and interdecadal variability) using a basic concept of air mass and front by calculating equivalent potential temperature (${\theta}_e$) that considers air temperature and humidity simultaneously. A negative peak in the meridional gradient of this quantity signifies the approximate location of Changma front. This front has previously been recognized as the boundary between the tropical North Pacific air mass and cold Okhotsk sea air mass. However, this study identifies three more important air masses affecting Changma: the tropical monsoon air mass related to the intertropical convergence zone over Southeast Asia and South China Sea, the tropical continental air mass over North China, and intermittently polar continental air mass. The variations of these five air masses lead to complicated evolution of Changma and modulate intensity, onset and withdrawal dates, and duration of Changma on the interannual time scale. Importantly, use of ${\theta}_e$, 500-hPa geopotential height and 200 hPa zonal wind fields for determining Changma onset and withdrawal dates results in a significant increase (up to~57%) in the hindcast skill compared to a previous study.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.61-72
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• 2007

The relationship between North Pacific chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) population and climate variability was investigated in the North Pacific ecosystem. Time-series for the Aleutian Low Pressure, Southern Oscillation, Arctic Oscillation, and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) indices dating back to 1950 are compared with the chum salmon catch using a cross-correlation function (CCF) and cumulative sum (CuSum) of anomalies. The results of CCF and CuSum analyses indicated that there was a major change in climate during the mid 1970s, and that the chum salmon population responded to this climate event with a time-lag. The PDO and chum salmon returns showed a highly significant correlation with a time-lag of 3 years, while the AOI with a time-lag of $6{\sim}7$ years. The favorable environments for fry chum salmon might cause better growth in the coastal areas, but higher growth rate during the early stage does not seem to be related to the improved return rate of spawning adults. Rather, growth in the Okhotsk Sea or the Bering Sea during immature stages has a significant correlation with return rate, which implies the size-related mortality process. The development of a local climate index is necessary to elucidate the effect of climate variability on the marine ecosystem around the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.369-379
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• 2002

The characteristics of the East Asian summer monsoon circulation associated with the cool and wet summer of 1993 and the warm and dry summer of 1994 are investigated by analyzing the atmospheric circulations features in the upper and lower troposphere and by examining the global SST and associated tropical convective precipitation fields. The negative geopotential height anomalies at 500 hPa and 200 hPa in 1993 over East Asia, the central North Pacific, and the western United States were replaced by positive ones in 1994. In addition, the 200 hPa zonal wind anomaly averaged over the East Asian summer monsoon region is negatively correlated with the Korean summer temperature anomaly. The subtropical jet stream in 1993 was displaced into the central part of Korea well south of its normal position. The western Pacific subtropical high was shifted southward, and the East Asian summer rainfall and temperature was above-normal and below-normal, respectively due to the southwestward extension of a cold and dry polar airmass from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Est Sea. In contrast, the subtropical jet stream in 1994 was displaced well north of its normal position. The abrupt northward shift of the western Pacific subtropical high was accompanied with the rapid northward movement of the rain band of the East Asian summer monsoon rainfall. The anomaly patterns of the East Asia summer rainfall and temperature were opposite to those of 1993. Large sea surface temperature anomalies of opposite signs existed in the tropical Pacific with a mature El $Ni{\~{n}o$ in 1993 and a weak La $Ni{\~{n}a$ condition in 1994. The role of the anomalous convective precipitation in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean related with the variations in the low-level cross-equatorial flow along the northwestern periphery of the Australian high and the Mascarene high is probably to influence a large-scale atmospheric circulation over the East Asia during both the years.

• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.185-196
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• 2011

The performance assessment in radiosonde observation on the special observation program (ProbeX-2009) is performed and the characteristics of precipitation using Auto Weather System (AWS) and radiosonde data in 2009 at the Ulleungdo are investigated. The launching time, observation time, and maximum altitude of radiosonde are satisfied with the regulation from Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) but the duration of observational time of radiosonde is much shorter than that of the ProbeX-2007 because the altitude of launching site is higher than others in 2007. From the analysis of trajectories of radiosonde, most radiosondes at the Ulleungdo tend to move into the east because the westerly prevail at the middle latitude. However, when the Okhotsk high is expanded to the Korean peninsula and the north-westerly winds strengthen over the East Sea as the subtropical high is retreated, radiosonde tends to move into the south-west and south-east, respectively. Maximum distance appears at the end of observation level before May but the level of maximum distance is changed into 100 hPa after June because the prevailing wind direction is reversed from westerly to easterly at the stratosphere during summer time. The condition of precipitation was more correlated with the dynamic instability except Changma season. Precipitation in 2009 at the Ulleungdo occurred under the marine climate so that total precipitation amounts and precipitation intensity were increased and intensified during nighttime. The local environment favorable for the precipitation during nighttime was while the wind speed at the surface and the inflow from the shoreline were strengthened. Precipitation events also affected by synoptic condition but the localized effect induced by topography was more strengthened at the northern part of Ulleungdo.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.419-427
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• 2009

The Minke whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, is the smallest baleen whale in the suborder Mysticeti. Because this species inhabits coastal areas, it became a main target species of coastal small-type whaling in the North Atlantic and the Northwest Pacific Oceans, and the species' population size dramatically decreased because of over-exploitation. As a result, the International Whaling Commission declared a global moratorium on whaling and launched the development of a management procedure for protecting the whales. Morphological studies, whaling history analysis, and genetic studies conducted mainly by Japanese scientists showed the existence of one unique "E" stock that inhabits the waters around the Korean peninsula and mixes with the "O" stock in the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk. We used the mitochondrial DNA control region polymorphism of 348 Minke whales bycaught or stranded in Korean waters from 30 October 1998 to 25 June 2005 to assess the whale population structure by year. The frequency of the 10 major haplotypes from the 40 identified haplotypes was not significantly different among groups, suggesting that a subpopulation was not present. A comparison of the genetic distances calculated with Tamura-Nei's method showed that the distances between groups were lower than those within groups, which suggests that there was no genetic difference in the Minke whale populations. The Fst comparison between groups and the phylogenetic tree constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) and Neighbor Joining (NJ) method also detected no obvious sub-stock structure.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.137-140
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• 2008

During CHAOS (2003, 2006) and SSGH projects (2007), acoustic investigation including hydroacoustic (HA), side-scan sonar (SSS) and highresolution sparker seismic (HSS) surveys was carried out on the northeastern Sakhalin slope ($53^{\circ}56'\;N$, $143^{\circ}52'\;E$ to $54^{\circ}40'\;N$, $144^{\circ}32'\;E$). More than 130 methane seeps with high backscatter intensity are identified on SSS mosaic, which are well accompanied with gas flares in the water column on HA profiles and subbottom gas chimneys on HSS profiles. It is likely that that some seeps align along a NW strike parallel to the Lavrentiev Fault.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.112-120
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• 2007

This paper reviews the use of parasites as 'biological tags' for studying stock analysis of salmonid fishes. Numerous definitions of stock concepts exist, but most of them essentially define a group of fish as having similar biological characteristics and being self-reproducing as stocks. It is important to manage fish stocks for human consumption and sustainable production and especially for salmonid fishes. Because these fry are considered as each country's property, it is necessary to identify and discriminate each fish stock in the open sea. Methods of separating fish stocks are very diverse. Artificial tags, parasites, otoliths scales and genetic characters have been used for stock analysis and each method has advantages and disadvantages. Of these parasites can be good biological tags because they are applied by nature at no cost. Parasites can be infected with susceptible host fishes when they enter into certain areas. Then if they move to the outside and are caught researchers can infer that the fish had been in the endemic area for a period of time during their life. Hence the host fish can be considered as naturally 'tagged' by parasites. However, if they do not pass the parasites-endemic. area, they will harbour no parasites. Therefore, researchers can discriminate each fish stocks and trace their migration routes with these biological tags. In this paper, several examples on the use of parasites as biological tags for studying salmonids, as well as other species, are listed. The advantages and limitations of parasites as biological tags are also discussed. Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), the main salmonid species migrating to Korea, is distributed all around the North Pacific. Korean chum salmon are generally thought to move to the Sea of Okhotsk, the western North Pacific and the Bering Sea. However, there is no clear information on the distribution and migration pathways of Korean chum salmon, and no markers exist for separating them from others yet. Recent Korean chum salmon stock analysis including parasites information are mentioned.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.337-349
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• 2012

In this study, we classify the 1000 hPa geopotential height fields around the Korean peninsula through the Kmeans cluster analysis and investigate the occurrence characteristics of each cluster pattern. The 11 clusters are identified as the typical pressure patterns, applying the pattern correlation as a similarity among clusters and the criterion of cluster similarity 0.8, of which three pressure patterns are associated with the extension of Siberia air mass, other three with the latitudes of the longest symmetry axis of North Pacific highs, two with the trough largely under the air mass of Siberia or North Pacific, and the remaining three, the migratory high patterns generally occurring in spring and autumn, are disjointed according to the direction of the longest symmetry axis of highs. The occurrence rate of air masses affecting the Korean peninsula, estimated from the number of occurrence days of 11 pressure patterns, is 55.4% Siberian, 29.3% North Pacific, 12.8% Yangtze-River, 2.5% Okhotsk sea and 68.2% of all these is the continental air masses. The wintertime pressure patterns around the Korean peninsula are nearly contrary to those in summertime, each dominated by the highs extended from the stationary air masses over the Central Siberia and the North Pacific ocean. The migratory highs occur largely in spring and autumn while transferring from the wintertime patterns to summertime patterns, or vice versa. Recently, the occurrence frequency of the highs extended from the North Pacific is on the decrease and while the wintertime pressure patterns occur frequently in spring and autumn, the occurrence frequency of the pressure patterns with trough is on the increase and the migratory highs occur in nearly all seasons.

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