• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.142-158
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• 2012

This paper investigates the physical and chemical characteristics of long-range transport (LRT) process of air pollutants by employing the MM5-CMAQ and its comparison with local emission dominant (LED) case over northeast Asia. We first classified high air pollution days into LRT and LED cases based on the synoptic meteorological variables of vorticity and geostrophic wind speed/direction at a geopotential level of over 850hPa. LRT cases are further categorized into three types of transport patterns (LRT-I-III) according to the air mass pathways from source regions. LRT-I-III are originated from northern, central, and southern China, respectively, identified by back trajectory analysis. Three LRT-I-III groups have different and unique locations of high pressure and transport pathways. The chemical characteristics showed that the simulated spatial distributions varied in terms of locations of maximum concentrations and the temporal variation of surface concentrations. The primary air pollutants such as $NO_x$, $PM_{10}$ and $SO_2$ of all of three LRT cases are well transported into Korea peninsula with different concentration levels. Of LRT cases, LRT-II has the greatest effect on air quality of Korea peninsula, followed by LRT-I and LRT-III. In comparison with LRT, the LED case shows relatively higher air pollution concentrations in general, but showed a variety of different air quality levels following the emission strength pattern. These widely varying patterns are impling the case dependent multi-directional approach for the development of indicators of long-range transport process over northeast Asia.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-102
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• 2020

Accurate load evaluation is essential in any performance-based design. Design wind speeds and associated wind loads are well defined for synoptic boundary layer winds but not for thunderstorms. The method presented in the current study represents a new approach to obtain design wind speeds associated with thunderstorms and their gust fronts using historical data and Monte Carlo simulations. The method consists of the following steps (i) developing a numerical model for thunderstorm downdrafts (i.e. downbursts) to account for storm translation and outflow dissipation, (ii) utilizing the model to characterize previous events and (iii) extrapolating the limited wind speed data to cover life-span of structures. The numerical model relies on a previously generated CFD wind field, which is validated using six documented thunderstorm events. The model suggests that 10 parameters are required to describe the characteristics of an event. The model is then utilized to analyze wind records obtained at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (KLBB) meteorological station to identify the thunderstorm parameters for this location, obtain their probability distributions, and utilized in the Monte Carlo simulation of thunderstorm gust front events for many thousands of years for the purpose of estimating design wind speeds. The analysis suggests a potential underestimation of design wind speeds when neglecting thunderstorm gust fronts, which is common practice in analyzing historical wind records. When compared to the design wind speed for a 700-year MRI in ASCE 7-10 and ASCE 7-16, the estimated wind speeds from the simulation were 10% and 11.5% higher, respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.177-184
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• 1998

The spatial rainfall distributions accompanied by the heavy rainfalls in the Korean peninsula were class-sified to 6 typical patterns and synoptic characteristics of each pattern were muined. 274 cases of heavy rainfall events occurred for 10 years from 1981 through 1990 were used for thls study In the 4 types of them, heavy rainfalls are not by the strongly developed but by the rapidly deepening low pressure systems. which have a wall defiried low and high level jets before arrival to the Korean peninsula. In another 2 types, heavy rainfall are due to speciauy developed surface low pressure system. Most of the heavy rain areas are associated with the location of the low level Jets and their direction and with the position of surface warm front. In the 4 types, the heavy rain areas extend In zonal direction. And the latitudinal locations of these areas are associated with the polar low center or strong main trough over 500 hPa level. The more northwestern part of the Asla the low locates the higher latitude in the Korean Peninsula the rainfall concentration occurs at. It is also known that the seasonal drifting of the lows have some relations to the procession of summer monsoon but its characteristics change year by year.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.43-56
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• 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
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 2020

The aircraft observation campaign was performed to investigate thermodynamic conditions of snowfall cloud over the East Sea of Korean peninsula from 2 February to 16 March 2018. During this period, four snowfall events occurred in the Yeongdong region and three cases were analyzed using dropsonde data. Snowfall cases were associated with the passage of southern low-pressure (maritime warm air mass) and expansion of northern high-pressure (continental polar air mass). Case 1 and Case 2a were related to low-pressure systems, and Case 2b and Case 3 were connected with high-pressure systems, respectively. And their thermodynamic properties and horizontal distribution of snowfall cloud were differed according to the influence of the synoptic condition. In Case 1 and Case 2a, atmospheric layers between sea surface and 350 hPa contained moisture more than 15 mm of TPW with multiple inversion layers detected by dropsonde data, while the vertical atmosphere of Case 2b and Case 3 were dry as TPW 5 mm or less with a single inversion inversion layer around 750~850 hPa. However, the vertical distributions of equivalent potential temperature (θ_e) were similar as moist-adiabatically neutral condition regardless of the case. But, their values below 900 hPa were about 10 K higher in Case 1 and Case 2a (285~290 K) than in Case 2b and Case 3 (275~280 K). The difference in these values is related to the characteristics of the incoming air mass and the location of the snowfall cloud.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.149-157
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• 2011

Urbanization of the world's population has given rise to more than 450 cities around the world with populations in excess of 1 million (megacity) and more than 25 so-called metacities with populations over 10 million (Brinkhoff, 2010). The United States today has a total resident population of more than 308,500,000 people, with 81 percent residing in cities and suburbs as of mid - 2005 (UN, 2008). Urban meteorology is the study of the physics, dynamics, and chemistry of the interactions of Earth's atmosphere and the urban built environment, and the provision of meteorological services to the populations and institutions of metropolitan areas. While the details of such services are dependent on the location and the synoptic climatology of each city, there are common themes, such as enhancing quality of life and responding to emergencies. Experience elsewhere (e.g., Shanghai, Helsinki, Tokyo, Seoul, etc.) shows urban meteorological support is a key part of an integrated or multi-hazard warning system that considers the full range of environmental challenges and provides a unified response from municipal leaders. Urban meteorology has come to require much more than observing and forecasting the weather of our cities and metropolitan areas. Forecast improvement as a function of more and better observations of various kinds and as a function of model resolution, larger ensembles, predicted probability distributions; Responses of emergency managers, government officials, and users to improved and probabilistic forecasts; Benefits of improved forecasts in reduction of loss of life, property damage, and other adverse effects. A national initiative to enhance urban meteorological services is a high-priority need for a wide variety of stakeholders, including the general, commerce and industry, and all levels of government. Some of the activities of such an initiative include: conducting basic research and development; prototyping and other activities to enable very--short and short range predictions; supporting and improving productivity and efficiency in commercial and industrial sectors; and urban planning for long term sustainability. In addition urban test-beds are an effective means for developing, testing, and fostering the necessary basic and applied meteorological and socioeconomic research, and transitioning research findings to operations. An extended, multi-year period of continuous effort, punctuated with intensive observing and forecasting periods, is envisioned.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.95-110
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• 2020

Comparisons between two different surface temperatures from high-resolution ECMWF ReAnalysis 5 (ERA5) and Automated Synoptic Observing System (ASOS) observations were performed to investigate the reliability of the new reanalysis data over South Korea. As ERA5 has been recently produced and provided to the public, it will be highly used in various research fields. The analysis period in this study is limited to 1999-2018 because regularly recorded hourly data have been provided for 61 ASOS stations since 1999. Topographic characteristics of the 61 ASOS locations are classified as inland, coastal, and mountain based on Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data. The spatial distributions of whole period time-averaged temperatures for ASOS and ERA5 were similar without significant differences in their values. Scatter plots between ASOS and ERA5 for three different periods of yearlong, summer, and winter confirmed the characteristics of seasonal variability, also shown in the time-series of monthly error probability density functions (PDFs). Statistical indices NMB, RMSE, R, and IOA were adopted to quantify the temperature differences, which showed no significant differences in all indices, as R and IOA were all close to 0.99. In particular, the daily mean temperature differences based on 1-hour-averaged temperature had a smaller error than the classical daily mean temperature differences, showing a higher correlation between the two data. To check if the complex topography inside one ERA5 grid cell is related to the temperature differences, the kurtosis and skewness values of 90-m DEM PDFs in a ERA5 grid cell were compared to the one-year period amplitude among those of the power spectrum in the time-series of monthly temperature error PDFs at each station, showing positive correlations. The results account for the topographic effect as one of the largest possible drivers of the difference between ASOS and ERA5.