• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.256-271
• /
• 2016

The source and transport of the severe Asian dust event (ADE) recently observed in the Korean peninsula were analyzed based on observations (surface weather charts and satellite data) and modeling study (WRF-CMAQ modeling systems). The ADE occurred on 20-21 March 2010 in South Korea with very high $PM_{10}$ concentrations (up to approximately $3,000{\mu}g/m^3$ in Daegu and Jeju). The dominant meteorological conditions affecting the dust outbreak and transport processes were found to be associated with the two synoptic features: (1) strong airflows (i.e., westerlies) induced by a strong pressure gradient resulting from a dense isobar pattern (west-high and east-low) between Tuva Republic and Mongolia and (2) a rapid movement of the strong westerlies merged with airflows generated near Gobi Desert and Inner Mongolia. The merged strong westerlies with a low pressure played a pivotal role in the huge amount of AD and its transport height of 5-8 km. The time and location of dust emissions calculated in the source regions were similar to those observed in the weather charts and satellite image. The ADE simulation mostly showed agreement in the patterns and the concentration levels of modeled dust (including $PM_{10}$) with those of the observations.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.20 no.E1
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 2004

Meteorological mechanisms in association with long-range transport of Asian dust in April 2001 have been investigated using weather maps, satellite images, TOMS and surface $PM_{10}$ data, backward trajectories, plus modeling output results (geopotential heights, horizontal wind vectors, potential temperatures, and streamlines). The results indicated that long -range transport of Asian dust to the west coast of North America was associated with strong westerlies between the Aleutian low and the Pacific high acting as a conveyor belt. Accelerating westerly flows due to cyclogenesis at the source regions over East Asia transported pollution from the continent to the central Pacific. When the system reached the Aleutian Islands, the intensity of troughs and the westerlies were amplified in the North Pacific. Thereafter the winds between the Aleutian Islands and the Pacific Ocean were more intensified from the air flow transport of the conveyor belt. Consequently, the strong wind in the conveyor belt enhanced the dust transport from the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of North America. This was evidenced by $PM_{10}$ concentration (maximum of about $100{\mu}g\;m^{-3}$) observed In California. Further evidence of the dust transport was found through the observation of satellite images, the distribution of TOMS aerosol index, and the analyses of streamlines and backward trajectories.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.41-49
• /
• 1997

Status of photochemical air pollution in the Greater Seoul Area (GSA) between 1990 and 1995 was assessed in terms of frequency distributions, number of days exceeding standards, average concentration and meteorological effects. In Seoul compared with other areas in Korea, daily maximum concentration was higher but average concentration was not so high due to lower daily minimum from April to October. The top 5th percentile was high especially in summer season. Average number of days exceeding 100 ppb at monitoring stations in GSA was highest in 1994, the hottest year, but it was only 4 days a year. Mean meteorological pattern of high ozone days could be summarized as low wind speeds, high temperatures, strong solar radiation, and low precipitation. Westerlies were more frequent on high ozone days and at Pangi station located in the eastside of GSA, both number of high ozone days and average concentration were high. Effect of precursor transport on the rise of ozone concentration was, however, not consistently important on the whole in GSA.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.43-56
• /
• 1998

The purpose of this study is to identify distributional characteristics of climatic elements and to analyze synoptic characteristics on the pressure fields for spring droughts in Korea. In the distributions of minimum temperature during the spring droughts, positive anomalies and negative anomalies are mixed up, but in March the negative anomaly areas are widely distributed in Korea. It implies that the droughts of March have more frequent occurrences of the west-high, east-low pressure patterns. In the maximum air temperatures, the positive anomalies appear in Korea. It indicates that the spring droughts have rain days, cloud amount and humidities less than normal. As a result, the amount of evaporation is increased in Korea. In the pressure anomaly of surface pressure fields, the positive anomalies appear in the west, negative anomalies in the east in March, but in May the positive anomalies appeared zonally around the Korean peninsula. It indicates that March droughts have more frequent occurrences of the west-high. east-low patterns, but in May the Korean Peninsula has more frequent recurrences of the migratory anticyclone patterns. The height anomaly patterns of 500hPa pressure surface in spring droughts are similarly shown to those of surface fields. In March droughts, the positive height anomalies appear in the west, the negative height anomalies in the east, but in April the negative height anomaly areas are extended to the west part. In May the positive anomalies appear zonally around the Korean Peninsula, and strong positive height anomalies appear around the Kamchatka Peninsula and the sea of Okhotsk. These are the result of circulations that inhibit the eastward movement of westerlies and that has persistent anticyclone circulation patterns around the Korean Peninsula. As a result, the zonal indices of westerlies during March and April droughts are lower than normal, but higher in May. These data indicate that early spring droughts are associated with weak zonal flow, but the late spring droughts are obviously related with strong zonal flow. In addition, during early spring droughts the abnormally deep trough over the west coast of the North Pacific Ocean that accompanied the anticyclone was associated with frequent advection of air from the dry regions in the Central Asia into the Korean Peninsula. The atmospheric circulation patterns at the height of the 500hPa pressure surface in May was quite different from March and April circulation patterns. Instead of the abnormal ridge in the west and trough in the east, the circulation pattern in May was characterized by a much stronger than normal anticyclone over the Korean Peninsula. Also, the zonal indices of westerlies in May are higher than normal. The occurrences of drought in early spring, therefore, have mechanism different from those of late spring.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.171-182
• /
• 2008

In this study, we analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution of wind resources over Korea based on hourly observational data recorded over a period of 5 years from 457 stations belonging to Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). The surface and 850 hPa wind data obtained from the Korea Local Analysis and Prediction System (KLAPS) and the Regional Data Assimilation and Prediction System (RDAPS) over a period of 1 year are used as supplementary data sources. Wind speed is generally high over seashores, mountains, and islands. In 62 (13.5%) stations, mean wind speeds for 5 years are greater than $3ms^{-1}$. The effects of seasonal wind, land-sea breeze, and mountain-valley winds on wind resources over Korea are evaluated as follows: First, wind is weak during summer, particularly over the Sobaek Mountains. However, over the coastal region of the Gyeongnam-province, strong southwesterly winds are observed during summer owing to monsoon currents. Second, the wind speed decreases during night-time, particularly over the west coast, where the direction of the land breeze is opposite to that of the large-scale westerlies. Third, winds are not always strong over seashores and highly elevated areas. The wind speed is weaker over the seashore of the Gyeonggi-province than over the other seashores. High wind speed has been observed only at 5 stations out of the 22 high-altitude stations. Detailed information on the wind resources conditions at the 21 stations (15 inland stations and 6 island stations) with high wind speed in Korea, such as the mean wind speed, frequency of wind speed available (WSA) for electricity generation, shape and scale parameters of Weibull distribution, constancy of wind direction, and wind power density (WPD), have also been provided. Among total stations in Korea, the best possible wind resources for electricity generation are available at Gosan in Jeju Island (mean wind speed: $7.77ms^{-1}$, WSA: 92.6%, WPD: $683.9Wm^{-2}$) and at Mt. Gudeok in Busan (mean wind speed: $5.66ms^{-1}$, WSA: 91.0%, WPD: $215.7Wm^{-2}$).

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.24 no.7
• /
• pp.893-905
• /
• 2015

This study analyzes the correlation between Western Pacific (WP) teleconnection pattern index (WPI) in April during 1954-2008 and rainfall amounts in the same month. Based on the results, it is identified that there have been strong positive correlations between central China, Korea and the southwestern part of Japan in the East Asian region. Through differences between 10 positive WP years and 10 negative WP years selected from the April WPI excluding ENSO years, it is found that rainfall amounts increase in April of positive WP years due to the following characteristics. Increases in rainfall amounts are evident in the East Asian middle latitudinal region where the positive correlation between the two variables is the highest and this is because anomalous southwesterlies are strengthened in the East Asian middle latitudinal region due to the spatial pattern of a south-low-north-high anomalous pressure system centered on this region that is made by anomalous anticyclones centered on the southeastern side of the region and other anomalous anticyclones centered on the northeastern side of the region. In addition, anomalous westerlies (jet) are strengthen in the upper troposphere of the East Asian middle latitudinal region and as a result, anomalous upward flows are strengthened in this region and thus anomalous warm air temperatures are formed in the entire level of the troposphere in the region. In addition to atmospheric environments, anomalous warm sea surface temperatures are formed in the seas in the East Asian middle latitudinal region to help the rainfall amount increases in the East Asian middle latitudinal region.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.423-433
• /
• 2014

This study examined the short-term variability of $CO_2$ concentrations measured at the Gosan site ($33^{\circ}17^{\prime}N$, $126^{\circ}10^{\prime}E$) in Jeju, Korea for the last 9 years from 2002 to 2010. The weekly distribution shows higher $CO_2$ concentrations during weekends than weekdays which implies the impact of local emissions because Jeju Island is one of the top tourist attraction in Korea. In diurnal variation, $CO_2$ concentration reached the maximum at 6 am and the minimum at 1 pm. The high $CO_2$ concentrations were mostly associated with lower wind speed (below 4 m/s) and easterlies, which was typical of summer night. In other seasons, however, the high concentrations were encountered under strong westerlies (8~16 m/s), which implies the influence of Chinese outflows. $CO_2$ concentrations were found to be highly correlated with meteorological parameters including wind speed, temperature, humidity, and solar radiation except for winter.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.161-172
• /
• 2010

In an effort to investigate the characteristics of synoptic meteorological conditions in association with long-range transport of haze phenomena occurred over Korea, we statistically classified characteristics of haze events into two types of haze: stagnant case and long-range transport case, based on the synoptic meteorological parameters, and analyze comparatively the characteristics of synoptic meteorological conditions for each case. The results showed that the occurrence frequency of stagnant case accounts for 64.5%, showing superiority of stagnant haze cases over the long-range transport case which occupies only 35.5% among total 67 cases for the period from 2000 to 2007. This result indicates that haze phenomena occurred over Korea has influenced by not only the emission in Korea by itself but long range transport effects originating from China inland. The synoptic condition on 850hPa level showed that, when stagnant case occurred, Korean peninsula was located under the effects of negative vorticity with the significantly weak wind speed and stable atmospheric condition. In contrast, long-range transport case shows positive vorticity and relatively strong wind speed over 850hPa level, especially with the location of high pressure system over the area of southwestern China. This location of high pressure system implies to induce the westerlies or northwesteries consistently due to its pressure gradient by itself. Also other comparative studies haze days (vs.) Asian dust days are carried out, and we found out that the patterns of long-range transport of haze phenomena in Korea shows similar to Asian dust case but the static stability condition indicates more stabilized atmospheric condition than dust phenomena.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.29 no.12
• /
• pp.1223-1237
• /
• 2020

This study focused on comparing the meteorological conditions in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) on high-event days and non-event days in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA). We utilized observed PM10 and meteorological variables at the surface as well as at the upper heights. The results showed that high-event days were consistently associated with lower wind speed, whereas wind direction showed no particular difference between high-event and non-event days with frequent westerlies and northwesterlies for both cases. During high-event days, the temperature was much warmer than the monthly normal values with a sharp increasing trend, and Relative Humidity (RH) was higher than the monthly normal, especially on high-event days in February. During high-event days in spring, a double inversion layer was present at surface and upper heights. This indicates that stability in the multi-layer is an important indicator of higher PM10 concentrations. Net radiation in spring and winter is also closely associated with higher PM10 concentrations. Strong net radiation resulted in large sensible heat, which in turn facilitated a deeper mixing height with diluted PM10 concentrations; in contrast, PM10 concentrations were higher when sensible heat in spring and winter was very low. We also confirmed that convective and friction velocity was higher on non-event days than on high-event days, and this was especially obvious in spring and winter. This indicated that thermal turbulence was dominant in spring, whereas in winter, mechanical turbulence was dominant over the SMA.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.153-176
• /
• 2024

At 0843 UTC 30 May 2021, a commercial aircraft encountered severe turbulence at z = 11.5 km associated with the rapid development of Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) in the Gyeonggi Bay of Korea. To investigate the generation mechanisms of Near-Cloud Turbulence (NCT) near the MCS, Weather Research and Forecasting model was used to reproduce key features at multiple-scales with four nested domains (the finest ∆x = 0.2 km) and 112 hybrid vertical layers. Simulated subgrid-scale turbulent kinetic energy (SGS TKE) was located in three different regions of the MCS. First, the simulated NCT with non-zero SGS TKE at z = 11.5 km at 0835 UTC was collocated with the reported NCT. Cloud-induced flow deformation and entrainment process on the downstream of the overshooting top triggered convective instability and subsequent SGS TKE. Second, at z = 16.5 km at 0820 UTC, the localized SGS TKE was found 4 km above the overshooting cloud top. It was attributed to breaking down of vertically propagating convectively-induced gravity wave at background critical level. Lastly, SGS TKE was simulated at z = 11.5 km at 0930 UTC during the dissipating stage of MCS. Upper-level anticyclonic outflow of MCS intensified the environmental westerlies, developing strong vertical wind shear on the northeastern quadrant of the dissipating MCS. Three different generation mechanisms suggest the avoidance guidance for the possible NCT events near the entire period of the MCS in the heavy air traffic area around Incheon International Airport in Korea.