• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.457-470
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• 2014

Thermodynamic conditions related with localized torrential rainfall in the middle west region of Korean peninsula are examined using radar rain rate and radiosonde observational data. Localized torrential rainfall events in this study are defined by three criteria base on 1) any one of Automated Synoptic Observing System (ASOS) hourly rainfall exceeds $30mmhr^{-1}$ around Osan, 2) the rain (> $1mmhr^{-1}$) area estimated from radar reflectivity is less than $20,000km^2$, and 3) the rain (> $10mmhr^{-1}$) cell is detected clearly and duration is short than 24 hr. As a result, 13 cases were selected during the summer season of 10 years (2004-13). It was found that the duration, the maximum rain area, and the maximum volumetric rain rate of convective cells (> $30mmhr^{-1}$) are less than 9hr, smaller than $1,000km^2$, and $15,000{\sim}60,000m^3s^{-1}$ in these cases. And a majority of cases shows the following thermodynamic characteristics: 1) Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) > $800Jkg^{-1}$, 2) Convective Inhibition (CIN) < $40Jkg^{-1}$, 3) Total Precipitable Water (TPW) ${\approx}$ 55 mm, and 4) Storm Relative Helicity (SRH) < $120m^2s^{-2}$. These cases mostly occurred in the afternoon. These thermodynamic conditions indicated that these cases were caused by strong atmospheric instability, lifting to overcome CIN, and sufficient moisture. The localized torrential rainfall occurred with deep moisture convection result from the instability caused by convective heating.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.6B
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• pp.543-550
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• 2009

The traditional simple extrapolation type short term quantitative rainfall forecast can not realize the evolution of rainfall generating weather system. To overcome the drawback of the linear extrapolation type rainfall forecasting model, the history of a weather system from sequential weather radar information and a polynomial regression technique were used to generate forecast fileds of x-directional, y-directional velocities and radar reflectivity which considered the nonlinear behavior related to the evolution of weather systems. Results demonstrated that test statistics of forecasts using the developed model is better than that of 2-CAPPI forecast. However there is still a large room to improve the forecast of spatial and temporal evolution of local storms since the model is not based on a fully physical approach but a statistical approach.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.469-480
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• 2020

This study analyzed the differences of mean basin precipitation between TM and radar based on the 51 standard basins in Han river and Nakdong river when large scale of heavy rains occurred in 2018. The result shows that the differences between radar and TM are -65.05 ~ 26.09% and -82.00 ~ 3.80% for accumulated and 10 min. maximum mean basin precipitation, respectively. The correlation analysis between the differences of estimated mean basin precipitation and basin characteristics such as average altitude of basin, area of basin, and shape factor of basin presents that there is no clear correlation between them. And the differences of point precipitation also shows the similar tendency with those of mean basin precipitation. In order to find out the correlation between them and meteorological conditions such as rainfall patterns, the reflectivity of radars according to the observation angles is analyzed at the selected basins, and then it is found that the differences of mean basin precipitation between TM and radar is more dominated by the meteorological conditions than by the topographic conditions such as basin characteristics.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.313-322
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• 2020

There is always a risk of water disasters due to sudden storms in mountainous regions in Korea, which is more than 70% of the country's land. In this study, a radar-based risk prediction technique for sudden downpour is applied in the mountainous region and is evaluated for its applicability using Mt. Biseul rain radar. Eight local heavy rain events in mountain regions are selected and the information was calculated such as early detection of cumulonimbus convective cells, automatic detection of convective cells, and risk index of detected convective cells using the three-dimensional radar reflectivity, rainfall intensity, and doppler wind speed. As a result, it was possible to confirm the initial detection timing and location of convective cells that may develop as a localized heavy rain, and the magnitude and location of the risk determined according to whether or not vortices were generated. In particular, it was confirmed that the ground rain gauge network has limitations in detecting heavy rains that develop locally in a narrow area. Besides, it is possible to secure a time of at least 10 minutes to a maximum of 65 minutes until the maximum rainfall intensity occurs at the time of obtaining the risk information. Therefore, it would be useful as information to prevent flash flooding disaster and marooned accidents caused by heavy rain in the mountainous area using this technique.

• Atmosphere
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.159-183
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• 2016

On 31 July 2014, there was a localized torrential rainfall ($58.5mm\;hr^{-1}$) caused by a strong convective cell with thunder showers over Daegwallyeong. In the surface synoptic chart, a typhoon was positioned in the East China Sea and the subtropical high was expanded to the Korean peninsula. A WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) numerical simulation with a resolution of 1 km was performed for a detailed analysis. The simulation result showed a similar pattern in a reflectivity distribution particularly over the Gangwon-do region, compared with the radar reflectivity. According to the results of the WRF simulation, the process and mechanism of the localized heavy rainfall over Daegwallyeong are as follows: (1) a convective instability over the middle part of the Korean peninsula was enhanced due to the low level advection of warm and humid air from the North Pacific high. (2) There was easterly flow from the coast to the mountainous regions around Daegwallyeong, which was generated by the differential heating of the insolation among Daegwallyeong and the Yeongdong coastal plain, and nearby coastal waters. (3) In addition, westerly flow from the western part of Daegwallyeong caused a strong convergence in this region, generating a strong upward motion combined by an orographic effect. (4) This brought about a new convective cell over Daegwallyeong. And this cell was more developed by the outflow from another thunderstorm cell to the south, and finally these two cells were merged to develop as a strong convective cell with thunder showers, leading to the record breaking maximum rainfall per hour ($58.5mm\;hr^{-1}$) in July.

• Atmosphere
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.69-86
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• 2007

The characteristics of the dual-Doppler wind retrieval method based on a three dimensional variational (3DVAR) conception were investigated from the following four points of view; the sensitivity of the number of iteration, the effect of the weak constraint term, the effect of the smoothness term, and the sensitivity of the error mixing ratio of the radial velocities. In the experiment, the radial velocities relative to the Gosan and Jindo radar sites of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) were calculated from the forecasting of the WRF (Weather Research and Forecast; Skamarock, 2004) model at 1330 UTC 30 June 2006, which is the one and half hour forecast from the initial time, 1200 UTC on that day. The results showed that the retrieval performance of the horizontal wind field was robust, but that of the vertical wind was sensitive to the external conditions, such as iteration number and the on/off of the weak constraint term. The sensitivity of error mixing ratio was so large that even the horizontal wind retrieval efficiency was reduced a lot. But the sensitivity of the smooth term was not so large. When we applied this method to the real mesoscale convective system (MCS) between the Gosan and Jindo radar pair at 1430 UTC 30 June 2006, the wind structure of the convective cells in the MCS was consistently retrieved relative to the reflectivity factor structure. By comparing the vertical wind structure of this case with that of 10 minutes after, 1440 UTC 30 June 2006, we got the physical consistency of our method.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.317-338
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• 2008

Analyses of observational data and numerical simulations were performed to understand the mechanism of MCSs (Mesoscale Convective Systems) occurred on 13-14 July 2004 over Jindo area of the Korean Peninsula. Observations indicated that synoptic environment was favorable for the occurrence of heavy rainfall. This heavy rainfall appeared to have been enhanced by convergence around the Changma front and synoptic scale lifting. From the analyses of storm environment using Haenam upper-air observation data, it was confirmed that strong convective instability was present around the Jindo area. Instability indices such as K-index, SSI-index showed favorable condition for strong convection. In addition, warm advection in the lower troposphere and cold advection in the middle troposphere were detected from wind profiler data. The size of storm, that produced heavy rainfall over Jindo area, was smaller than $50{\times}50km^2$ according to radar observation. The storm developed more than 10 km in height, but high reflectivity (rain rate 30 mm/hr) was limited under 6 km. It can be judged that convection cells, which form cloud clusters, occurred on the inflow area of the Changma front. In numerical simulation, high CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) was found in the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. However, heavy rainfall was restricted to the Jindo area with high CIN (Convective INhibition) and high CAPE. From the observations of vertical drop size distribution from MRR (Micro Rain Radar) and the analyses of numerically simulated hydrometeors such as graupel etc., it can be inferred that melted graupels enhanced collision and coalescence process of heavy precipitation systems.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.586-591
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• 2014

In this study, we introduce Radial Basis Function Neural Networks(RBFNNs) classifier using Artificial Bee Colony(ABC) algorithm in order to classify between precipitation event and non-precipitation event from given radar data. Input information data is rebuilt up through feature analysis of meteorological radar data used in Korea Meteorological Administration. In the condition phase of the proposed classifier, the values of fitness are obtained by using Fuzzy C-Mean clustering method, and the coefficients of polynomial function used in the conclusion phase are estimated by least square method. In the aggregation phase, the final output is obtained by using fuzzy inference method. The performance results of the proposed classifier are compared and analyzed by considering both QC(Quality control) data and CZ(corrected reflectivity) data being used in Korea Meteorological Administration.

• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.489-510
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• 2021

In this paper, we propose an algorithm for detecting convective initiation (CI) using GEO-KOMPSAT-2A/advanced meteorological imager data. The algorithm identifies clouds that are likely to grow into convective clouds with radar reflectivity greater than 35 dBZ within the next two hours. This algorithm is developed using statistical and qualitative analysis of cloud characteristics, such as atmospheric instability, cloud top height, and phase, for convective clouds that occurred on the Korean Peninsula from June to September 2019. The CI algorithm consists of four steps: 1) convective cloud mask, 2) cloud object clustering and tracking, 3) interest field tests, and 4) post-processing tests to remove non-convective objects. Validation, performed using 14 CI events that occurred in the summer of 2020 in Korean Peninsula, shows a total probability of detection of 0.89, false-alarm ratio of 0.46, and mean lead-time of 39 minutes. This algorithm can be useful warnings of rapidly developing convective clouds in future by providing information about CI that is otherwise difficult to predict from radar or a numerical prediction model. This CI information will be provided in short-term forecasts to help predict severe weather events such as localized torrential rainfall and hail.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.486-489
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• 2016

A horn antenna with corrugation structure and a PTFE(Polytetrafluoroethylene) teflon(relative permittivity=2.1) dielectric lens for good impedance matching characteristic and high gain performance is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna shows measured return loss below -25 dB over the operating X band(8~12 GHz), the peak gain of 22.3 dBi at the center frequency(10 GHz) and has overall size of $110mm{\times}110mm{\times}135mm$. Considering the performance of the proposed antenna, it is suitable for being inserted in a radar level transmitters, particularly for gas tanks on vessels or off-shore plants containing gas with very low reflectivity and relative permittivity such as LNG or LPG.