• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.439-446
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• 2011

NCEP reanalysis data were analyzed in order to provide distribution of global wind resource and wind speed in the surface layer for the years 2000-2009. Wind speed at 10 m above ground level (AGL) was converted to wind speed at 80 m above the ground level using the power law. The global average 80 m wind speed shows a maximum value of $13ms^{-1}$ at the storm track region. High wind speed over the land exists in Tibet, Mongolia, Central North America, South Africa, Australia, and Argentina. Wind speed over the ocean increased with a large value in the South China Sea, Southeast Asia, East Sea of the Korea. Sea surface wind in Western Europe and Scandinavia are suitable for wind farm with a value of $7-8ms^{-1}$. Areas with great potential for wind farm are also found in Eastern and Western coastal region of North America. Sea surface wind in Southern Hemisphere shows larger values in the high latitude of South America, South Africa and Australia. The distribution of low-resolution reanalysis data represents general potential areas for wind power and can be used to provide information for high-resolution wind resource mapping.

• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.471-480
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• 2011

This study investigates the characteristics of surface wind in North Korea using mesoscale model WRF. Hourly wind fields were simulated for one year representing mean characteristics of an 11-years period from 1998 to 2008. The simulations were performed on a nested grid from 27 km to 1 km horizontal resolution. The simulated wind map at 10 m above ground level is verified with 27 surface observations. Statistical verification skill score indicates that wind speed tends to overestimate in surface layer. The average RMSE value of the simulated wind speed is around $2.8ms^{-1}$. Wind map in North Korea showed that strong wind speed is distributed in the mountainous and western coastal region. The results of this wind mapping study contribute for the founding of wind energy potential location.

• Atmosphere
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.319-332
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• 2010

Sensitivity experiments of WRF model using different planetary boundary layer (PBL) and land surface model (LSM) parameterizations are evaluated for prediction of wind fields within the surface layer. The experiments were performed with three PBL schemes (YSU, Pleim, MYJ) in combination with three land surface models (Noah, RUC, Pleim). The WRF model was conducted on a nested grid from 27-km to 1-km horizontal resolution. The simulations validated wind speed and direction at 10 m and 80 m above ground level at a 1-km spatial resolution over the South Korea. Statistical verification results indicate that Pleim and YSU PBL schemes are in good agreement with observations at 10 m above ground level, while the MYJ scheme produced predictions similar to the observed wind speed at 80 m above ground level. LSM comparisons indicate that the RUC model performs best in predicting 10-m and 80-m wind speed. It is found that MYJ (PBL) - RUC (LSM) simulations yielded the best results for wind field in the surface layer. The choice of PBL and LSM parameterization will contribute to more accurate wind predictions for air quality studies and wind power using WRF.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.1015-1026
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• 2005

The southeastern coastal area of the Korean peninsula has a complex terrain including an irregular coastline and moderately high mountains. This implies that mesoscale circulations such as mountain-valley breeze and land-sea breeze can play an important role in wind field and ocean forcing. In this study, to improve the accuracy of complex coastal rind field(surface wind and sea surface wind), we carried out the sensitivity experiments based on PBL schemes in PSU/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5), which is being used in the operational system at Korea Meteorological Administration. Four widely used PBL parameterization schemes in sensitivity experiments were chosen: Medium-Range Forecast (MRF), High-resolution Blackadar, Eta, and Gayno-Seaman scheme. Thereafter, case(2004. 8. 26 - 8. 27) of weak-gradient flows was simulated, and the time series and the vertical profiles of the simulated wind speed and wind direction were compared with those of hourly surface observations (AWS, BUOY) and QuikSCAT data. In the simulated results, the strength of rind speed of all schemes was overestimated in complex coastal regions, while that of about four different schemes was underestimated in islands and over the sea. Sea surface wind using the Eta scheme showed the highest wind speed over the sea and its distribution was similar to the observational data. Horizontal distribution of the simulated wind direction was very similar to that of real observational data in case of all schemes. Simulated and observed vertical distribution of wind field was also similar under boundary layer(about 1 km), however the simulated wind speed was underestimated in upper layer.

• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.101-112
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• 2021

The long-term trend of surface wind speed in Korea is examined for 31 KMA weather stations from 1985 to 2019. Most stations, except Daegwallyeong, have several times of anemometer height changes from tens of centimeters to several meters. To minimize such height change effect on long-term wind trend, the present study adjusts anemometer height in each station to the standard height of 10 m using the power-law wind profile. This adjustment results in non-negligible trend change. For instance, the increasing surface wind speed at Suwon station, which has six times of anemometer height changes in a range of 0.8 m to 20 m, is weakened up to 67% and becomes statistically insignificant. Likewise, the decreasing trend at Andong station, with three times of anemometer height changes in a range of 10 m to 15.5 m, is weakened up to 66%. A similar weakening in long-term trend is observed in most stations regardless of positive and negative trends. However, due to the cancellation between weakened negative trends and weakened positive trends, the station-averaged wind speed trend in Korea does not change much. This result suggests that anemometer height adjustment is crucial for evaluating local wind speed trend but its impact on nation-wide wind speed trend is rather minor.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.449-459
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• 2015

Effects of buildings and topography on observation environment of surface wind in central regions of urban areas are investigated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. In order to reflect the characteristics of buildings and topography in urban areas, geographic information system (GIS) data are used to construct surface boundary input data. For each observation station, 16 cases with different inflow directions are considered to evaluate effects of buildings and topography on wind speed and direction around the observation station. The results show that flow patterns are very complicated due to the buildings and topography. The simulated wind speed and direction at the location of each observation station are compared with those of inflow. As a whole, wind speed at observation stations decreases due to the drag effect of buildings. The decrease rate of wind speed is strongly related with total volume of buildings which are located in the upwind direction. It is concluded that the CFD model is a very useful tool to evaluate location of observation station suitability. And it is expected to help produce wind observation data that represent local scale excluding the effects of buildings and topography in urban areas.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.171-182
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• 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: $215.7Wm^{-2}$).

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 1998.09a
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• pp.286-291
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• 1998

SAR has provided weather independent images on land and sea surface, which can be used for extracting various useful informations. Recently attempts to estimate wind field parameters from SAR images over the oceans have been made by various groups over the world. Although scatterometer loaded in ERS-1 and ERS-2 observes the global wind vector field at spatial resolution of 50 Km with accuracies of $\pm$2m/s in speed, the spatial resolution may not be good enough for applications in coastal regions. It is weil known the sea surface roughness is closely correlated to the wind field, but the wind retrieval algorithms from SAR images are yet in developing stage. Since the radar backscattering properties of the SAR images are principally the same as that of scatterometer, some previous studies conducted by other groups report the success in mesoscale coastal wind field retrievals using ERS SAR images. We have tested SWA (SAR Wind Algorithm) and CMOD4 model for estimation of wind speed using an ERS-1 SAR image acquired near Cheju Island, Korea, in October 11, 1994. The precise estimation of sigma nought and the direction of wind are required for applying the CMOD4 model to estimate wind speed. The wind speed in the test sub-image is estimated to be about 10.5m/s, which relatively well agrees to the observed wind speed about 9.0m/s at Seoguipo station. The wind speed estimation through the SWA is slightly higher than that of CMOD4 model. The sea surface condition may be favorable to SWA on the specific date. Since the CMOD4 model requires either wind direction or wind speed to retrieve the wind field, we should estimate the wind speed first using other algorithm including SWA. So far, it is not conclusive if the SWA can be used to provide input wind speed data for CMOD4 model or not. Since it is only initial stage of implementing the wind field retrieval algorithms and no in-situ observed data is currently avaliable, we are not able to evaluate the accuracy of the results at the moment. Therefore verification studies should be followed in the future to extract reliable wind field information in the coastal region using ERS SAR images.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.397-416
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• 2008

This study investigates a long-term variation of the annual extreme value for the instantaneous wind speed and the daily precipitation during 56 years (1951-2006) in Korea. Results show that there is a uptrend for both wind and precipitation extreme records, although regional trends are different from overall pattern in some places, particularly for wind speed. The estimated linear trends are 230 mm/56 yr in the daily precipitation and $15ms^{-1}$/56 yr in the maximum instantaneous wind speed. For precipitation, other indexes such as total annual precipitation, the number of extreme precipitation event, and precipitation intensity have dramatically increased as well, while there has been a clear downtrend for the number of strong wind events (> $14ms^{-1}$). It is found that the minimum surface pressure recorded during typhoon attacks in Korea tends to be decreasing, about 10 hPa/56 yr. This partly explains why the extreme values in the precipitation are increasing in Korea.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.7
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• pp.617-635
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• 2022

The effect of coupled data assimilation (DA) on the meteorological prediction in the west coastal region of Korea was evaluated using a coupled atmosphere-ocean model (e.g., COAWST) in the spring (March 17-26) of 2019. We performed two sets of simulation experiments: (1) with the coupled DA (i.e., COAWST_DA) and (2) without the coupled DA (i.e., COAWST_BASE). Overall, compared with the COAWST_BASE simulation, the COAWST_DA simulation showed good agreement in the spatial and temporal variations of meteorological variables (sea surface temperature, air temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity) with those of the observations. In particular, the effect of the coupled DA on wind speed was greatly improved. This might be primarily due to the prediction improvement of the sea surface temperature resulting from the coupled DA in the study area. In addition, the improvement of meteorological prediction in COAWST_DA simulation was also confirmed by the comparative analysis between SST and other meteorological variables (sea surface wind speed and pressure variation).