• Atmosphere
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.85-95
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• 2016

In this study, we investigated the variabilities of wind speed of 850 hPa and precipitable water over the East Asia region using the NCEP Final Analysis data from December 2001 to November 2011. A large variance of wind speed was observed in northern and eastern China during the winter period. During summer, the regions of the East China Sea, the South Sea of Japan and the East Sea show large variances in the wind speed caused by an extended North Pacific High and typhoon activities. The large variances in the wind speed in the regions are shown to be correlated with the inter-annual variability of precipitable water over the inland region of windward side of the Korean Peninsula. Based on the investigation, sensitivity tests to the domain size were performed using the WRF model version 3.6 for heavy precipitation events over the Korean Peninsula for 26 and 27 July 2011. Numerical experiments of different domain sizes were set up with 5 km horizontal and 50 levels vertical resolutions for the control and the first experimental run, and 9 km horizontal for the second experimental run. We found that the major rainfalls correspond to shortwave troughs with baroclinic structure over Northeast China and extended North Pacific High. The correlation analysis between the observation and experiments for 1-h precipitation indicated that the second experiment with the largest domain had the best performance with the correlation coefficient of 0.79 due to the synoptic-scale systems such as short-wave troughs and North Pacific High.

• Atmosphere
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 2009

Kinematic characteristics of a heavy rainfall event occurred in Changma front are analyzed using synoptic weather charts, satellite imagery and NCEP(National Centers for Environmental Prediction) / NCAR(National Centers for Atmospheric Research) reanalysis data. The heavy rainfall is accompanied with mesoscale rain clouds developing over the Southwest region of Korea during the period from 0300 LST to 2100 LST 25 June 2006. The surface cyclone in the Changma front is generated and developed rapidly when it meets following vertical conditions: The maximum value of relative vorticity is appeared at 700 hPa and is extended gradually near the surface. It is thought that the vertical structure of relative vorticity is closely related with the descent of strong wind zone exceeding $10ms^{-1}$. The jet core at 200 hPa is shifted southward and extended downward and the low-level jet stream associated with upper-level jet stream appeared at 850 hPa. Kinematic features of heavy rainfall system at cyclone-generating point are as follows: In the generating stage of cyclone, the relative vorticity below 850 hPa increased and the convergence below 850 hPa and the divergence at 400 hPa are intensified by southward movement of jet core at 200 hPa. The heavy rainfall system seems to locate to the south of the exit region of upper-level jet streak; In the developing stage of cyclone, the relative vorticity below 850 hPa and the convergence near surface are further strengthened and upward vertical velocity between 850 hPa and 200 hPa is increased.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.171-184
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• 2010

Accurate simulation of the meteorological field is very important to assess the wind resources. Some researchers showed that sea surface temperature (SST) plays a leading role on the local meterological simulation. New Generation Sea Surface Temperature (NGSST), Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis (OSTIA), and Real-Time Global Sea Surface Temperature (RTG SST) have different spatial distribution near the coast and OSTIA shows the best accuracy compared with buoy data in the southeastern coast of the Korean Peninsula. Those SST products are used to initialize the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model for November 13-23 2008. The simulation of OSTIA shows better result in comparison with NGSST and RTG SST. NGSST shows a large difference with OSTIA in horizontal and vertical wind fields during the weak synoptic condition, but wind power density shows a large difference during strong synoptic condition. RTG SST shows the similar patterns but smaller the magnitude and the extent.

• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.159-171
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• 2014

This study investigated the temporal and spatial characteristics of summertime (June-August) precipitation over Korean peninsula, using Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA)is Automated Synoptic Observing System (ASOS) data for the period of 1973-2010 and Automatic Weather System (AWS) data for the period of 1998-2010.The authors looked through climatological features of the summertime precipitation, then examined the degree of locality of the precipitation, and probable precipitation amount and its return period of 100 years (i.e., an extreme precipitation event). The amount of monthly total precipitation showed increasing trends for all the summer months during the investigated 38-year period. In particular, the increasing trends were more significant for the months of July and August. The increasing trend of July was seen to be more attributable to the increase of precipitation intensity than that of frequency, while the increasing trend of August was seen to be played more importantly by the increase of the precipitation frequency. The e-folding distance, which is calculated using the correlation of the precipitation at the reference station with those at all other stations, revealed that it is August that has the highest locality of hourly precipitation, indicating higher potential of localized heavy rainfall in August compared to other summer months. More localized precipitation was observed over the western parts of the Korean peninsula where terrain is relatively smooth. Using the 38-years long series of maximum daily and hourly precipitation as input for FARD2006 (Frequency Analysis of Rainfall Data Program 2006), it was revealed that precipitation events with either 360 mm $day^{-1}$ or 80 mm $h^{-1}$ can occur with the return period of 100 years over the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.441-455
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• 1999

Meteorological characteristics of three high-ozone episodes in the Greater Seoul Area, selected on the basis of morning-average wind direction and speed for the 1990~1997 period, were investigated. Three high-ozone episodes thus selected were seven days of July 3~9, 1992, nine days of July 21~29, 1994, and three days of August 22~24, 1994. Along with surface meteorological data from the Seoul Weather Station, surface and 850-hPa wind fields over the Northest Asia around the Korean Peninsula were used for the analysis. In the July 1992 episode, westerly winds were most frequent as a result of the influence of a high-pressure system in the west behind the trough. In contrast, in the July 1994 episode, easterly winds were most frequent due to the effect of a typhoon moving north from the south of Japan. Despite different prevailing wind directions in the two episodes, the peak ozone concentration of each episode always occurred when a sea-land breeze developed in association with weak synoptic forcing. The August 1994 episode, selected as being representative of calm conditions, was another typical example in which peak ozone concentration rose to 322 ppb under the well-developed sea-land breeze. All three high-ozone episodes were terminated by precipitation, and subsequent rises in ozone concentrations were also suppressed by a series of precipitation afterwards. In particular, two heavy rainfalls were the main reason why the August 1994 episode, with the highest and second-highest ozone concentrations during the 1990~1997 period, lasted for only a few days.

• Atmosphere
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.245-264
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• 2013

Heavy rain over the Gangwon region has distinct characteristics in the temporal and spatial distribution of rainfall, most of which are concentrated on a very short period of time and either part of Yeongdong and Yeongseo regions. According to its regional distribution, heavy rain events over the Gangwon region may be classified into Yeongdong and Yeongseo heavy rain in which rainfalls of more than 110 mm $(6 hrs)^{-1}$ (heavy rain warning) have been observed in at least one of the weather stations over only Yeongdong or Yeongseo region, but over the other region the rainfalls are less than 70 mm $(6 hrs)^{-1}$ (heavy rain advisory). To differentiate between Yeongdong and Yeongseo heavy rain, 9 cases for Yeongdong heavy rain and 8 cases for Yeongseo heavy rain are examined on their synoptic and mesoscale environments using some meteorological parameters and ingredients. In addition, 8 cases are examined in which heavy rain warning or advisory are issued in both Yeongdong and Yeongseo regions. The cases for each heavy rain type have shown largely similar features in some meteorological parameters and ingredients. Based on an ingredient analysis, there are three common and basic ingredients for the three heavy rain types: instability, moisture, and lift. However, it is found that the distinct and important process producing strong upward vertical motions may discriminate among three heavy rain types very well. Yeongdong heavy rain is characterized by strong orographic lifting, Yeongseo heavy rain by high instability (high CAPE), and heavy rain over both regions by strong synoptic-scale ascent (strong 850 hPa Q-Vector convergence, diagnostics for ascent). These ingredients and diagnostics for the ingredients can be used to forecasting the potential for regional heavy rain. And also by knowing which of ingredients is important for each heavy rain type, forecasters can concentrate on only a few ingredients from numerous diagnostic and prognostic products for forecasting heavy rain events.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.87-109
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• 2012

A substantial part of South Africa is subject to more than one strong wind source. The effect of that on extreme winds is that higher quantiles are usually estimated with a mixed strong wind climate estimation method, compared to the traditional Gumbel approach based on a single population. The differences in the estimated quantiles between the two methods depend on the values of the Gumbel distribution parameters for the different strong wind mechanisms involved. Cluster analysis of the distribution parameters provides a characterization of the effect of the relative differences in their values, and therefore the dominance of the different strong wind mechanisms. For gusts, cold fronts tend to dominate over the coastal and high-lying areas, while other mechanisms, especially thunderstorms, are dominant over the lower-lying areas in the interior. For the hourly mean wind speeds cold fronts are dominant in the south-west, south and east of the country. On the West Coast the ridging of the Atlantic Ocean high-pressure system dominate in the south, while the presence of a deep trough or coastal low pressure system is the main strong wind mechanism in the north. In the central interior cold fronts tend to share their influence almost equally with other synoptic-scale mechanisms.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.479-495
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• 2021

This study investigates the synoptic (patterns of southern highs, northern lows, and lows rapidly developed by tropopause folding), thermodynamic, and kinematic characteristics of a strong wind that occurred in the Yeongdong region of South Korea on March 18-20, 2020. To do so, we analyzed data from an automatic weather station (AWS), weather charts, the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis, rawinsonde, and windprofiler radars. The daily maximum instantaneous wind speed, exceeding 20 m s^-1, was observed at five weather stations during the analysis period. The strongest instantaneous wind speed (27.7 m s^-1) appeared in the Daegwallyeong area. According to the analysis of weather charts, along with the arrangement of the north-south low-pressure line, the isobars were moved to the Yeongdong area. It showed a sine wave shape, and a strong wind developed owing to the strong pressure gradient. On March 19, in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, with a drop in atmospheric pressure of 19 hPa or more within one day, a continuous strong wind was developed by the synoptic structure of the developing polar low. In the adiabatic chart observed in Bukgangneung, the altitude of the inversion layer was located at an altitude of approximately 1-3 km above the mountaintop, along with the maximum wind speed. We confirmed that this is consistent with the results of the vertical wind field analysis of the rawinsonde and windprofiler data. In particular, based on the thermodynamic and kinematic vertical analyses, we suggest that strong winds due to the vertical gradient of potential temperature in the lower layer and the development of potential vorticity due to tropopause folding play a significant role in the occurrence of strong winds in the Yeongdong region.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1673-1691
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• 2014

Although most natural disaster related studies conducted in Korea recently have been related to typhoons or severe rainstorms, the occurrence frequency of disasters due to windstorms or rainstorms is also high. To reduce the strong wind damage caused by strong windstorms due to climate change, basic studies of strong winds are necessary. Therefore, in this study, the types and representative cases of windstorms that were observed to have been higher than 14 m/s, which is the criterion for strong-wind warnings from the Korea Meteorological Administration, were selected from among those windstorm cases that occurred on the Korean Peninsula for 10 years to conduct a statistical analysis of them and determine their synoptic meteorological characteristics. The cases of windstorms occurring on the Korean Peninsula were divided into six weather patterns according to the locations of the anticyclones/cyclones. Among these types, the SH type, which occurs when Siberian Highs expand into the Korean Peninsula, showed the highest occurrence frequency, accounting for at least the majority of the entire occurrence frequency of windstorms together with that of the EC type, which occurs when cyclones develop on the East Sea, and there was no clear yearly trend of the occurrence frequencies of windstorms. The monthly occurrence frequencies of windstorms were formed mainly by typhoons in the summer and the Siberian Highs in the winter, and the months with the highest windstorm occurrence frequencies were December and January, in which mainly the SH and EC type windstorms occurred. March showed the next highest occurrence frequency with10 times, and SH windstorms occurred the most frequently in March, followed by the CC, SC, and EC types of windstorms, in order of precedence. Therefore, attention to these types of windstorms is required. Countermeasures against storm and flood damage in Korea targeting the summer should be re-reviewed together with pre-disaster prevention plans, because cases of storm and flood damage due to windstorms occur more frequently than those due to typhoons, and they occur throughout the year.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2017

A heavy foggy event accompanying with complex coastal fog was investigated in this study. This heavy foggy event occurred on FEB 11, 2015. Due to reduced visibility with this foggy event induced more than 100times serial traffic accidents over the Young-jong highway, and Flights from 04:30 AM to 10:00 AM were cancelled on Inchon International Airport. This heavy foggy event was occurred in synoptic and mesoscale environments but dense coastal fog were combined with a combination of sea fog, steam fog, and radiation fog. This kind of coastal fog can predicted by accurate analysis of the direction of the air flow, sea surface temperature(SST), and 925hPa isotherms from numerical weather prediction charts and real time analysis charts.