• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2008

This study intends to clarify the characteristics and causes of current changes in wintertime precipitation in Korea and to predict the future directions based on surface observational $(1973/04\sim2006/07)$ and modeled (GFDL 2.1) climate data. Analyses of surface observation data demonstrate that without changes in the total amount of precipitation, snowfall in winter (November-April) has reduced by 4.3cm/decade over the $1973\sim2007$ period. Moreover, the frequency and intensity of snowfall have decreased; the duration of snow season has shortened; and the snow-to-rain day ratio (STDR) has decreased. These patterns indicate that the type of wintertime precipitation has changed from snow to rain in recent decades. The snow-to-rain change in winter is associated with the increases of air temperature (AT) over South Korea. Analyses of synoptic charts reveal that the warming pattern is associated with the formation of a positive pressure anomaly core over northeast Asia by a hemispheric positive winter Arctic Oscillation (AO) mode. Moreover, the differentiated warming of AT versus sea surface temperature (SST) under the high pressure anomaly core reduces the air-sea temperature gradient, and subsequently it increases the atmospheric stability above oceans, which is associated with less formation of snow cloud. Comparisons of modeled data between torrent $(1981\sim2000)$ and future $(2081\sim2100)$ periods suggest that the intensified warming with larger anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission in the $21^{st}$ century will amplify the magnitude of these changes. More reduction of snow impossible days as well as more abbreviation of snow seasons is predicted in the $21^{st}$ century.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.289-296
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• 2009

The appearance and variation of cold water area and its expansion mechanism of tidal front in the south western coast of Korea in summer were studied on the basis of oceanographic data(1966-1995), satellite images from NOAA and SeaWiFs and numerical model. Cold water appearance in southwestern field of Jindo was due to the vertical mixing by strong tidal current. Tidal front where horizontal gradient of water temperature was more than $0.3^{\circ}C$/km parallels to contours of H/$U^3$ parameter 2.0~2.5 and the outer boundary of cold water region corresponds with contours of the parameter 2.5~3.0 in the southwestern sea of Korea during the period between neap and spring tides. The position replacement of tidal front formed in the study ares varies in a range of 25~75km and cold water region extends about 90km. These suggest that the magnitude of variation of frontal position and cold water area was proportionate to the tidal current during lunar tidal cycle. Moreover, it was estimated that the southwestward expansion of cold water region was derived from the southwestward tide-induced residual currents with speed more than 10cm/s.