• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.25-43
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• 2018

The effects of hydro-meteorological and surface variables on the frequency of Asian dust events (FAE) were investigated using ground station and satellite-based data. Present weather codes 7, 8, and 9 derived from surface synoptic observations (SYNOP)were used for counting FAE. Surface wind speed (SWS), air temperature (Ta), relative humidity (RH), and precipitation were analyzed as hydro-meteorological variables for FAE. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), land surface temperature (LST), and snow cover fraction (SCF) were used to consider the effects of surface variables on FAE. The relationships between FAE and hydro-meteorological variables were analyzed using Z-score and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. Although all variables expressed the change of FAE, the degrees of expression were different. SWS, LST, and Ta (indices applicable when Z-score was < 0) explained about 63.01, 58.00, and 56.17% of the FAE,respectively. For NDVI, precipitation, and RH, Asian dust events occurred with a frequency of about 55.38, 67.37, and 62.87% when the Z-scores were > 0. EOF analysis for the FAE showed the seasonal cycle, change pattern, and surface influences related to dryness condition for the FAE. The intensity of SWS was the main cause for change of FAE, but surface variables such as LST, SCF, and NDVI also were expressed because wet surface conditions suppress FAE. These results demonstrate that not only SWS and precipitation, but also surface variables, are important and useful precursors for monitoring Asian dust events.

• Atmosphere
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.119-133
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• 2022

From 2015 to 2021, high-concentration fine dust episodes with a daily average PM_2.5 concentration of 50 ㎍ m^-3 or higher were selected and classified into 3 types [long range transport (LRT), mixed (MIX) and Local emission and stagnant (LES)] using synoptic chart and backward trajectory analysis. And relationships between the fine particle data (PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentration and PM_2.5/PM₁₀ ratio) and meteorological data (PBLH, Ta, WS, U-wind, and Rainfall) were analyzed using hourly observation for the classification episodes on the Korean Peninsula and the Seoul metropolitan area (SMA). In LRT, relatively large particles such as dust are usually included, and in LES, fine particle is abundant. In the Korean peninsula, the rainfall was relatively increased centered on the middle and western coasts in MIX and LES. In the SMA, wind speed was rather strong in LRT and weak in LES. In LRT, rainfall was centered in Seoul, and in MIX and LES, rainfall appeared around Seoul. However, when the dust cases were excluded, the difference between the LRT and other types of air quality was decreased, but the meteorological variables (Ta, RH, Pa, PBLH, etc.) were further strengthened. In the case of the Korean Peninsula, it is difficult to find a clear relationship because regional influences (topographical elevation, cities and coasts, etc.) are complexly included in a rather wide area. In the SMA, it is analyzed that the effects of urbanization such as the urban heat island centered on Seoul coincide with the sea and land winds, resulting in a combination of high concentrations and meteorological phenomena.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2011

While high-definition precipitation maps with a 270 m spatial resolution are available for South Korea, there is little information on geospatial availability of precipitation water for the famine - plagued North Korea. The restricted data access and sparse observations prohibit application of the widely used PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) to North Korea for fine-resolution mapping of precipitation. A hybrid method which complements the PRISM grid with a sub-grid scale elevation function is suggested to estimate precipitation for remote areas with little data such as North Korea. The fine scale elevation - precipitation regressions for four sloping aspects were derived from 546 observation points in South Korea. A 'virtual' elevation surface at a 270 m grid spacing was generated by inverse distance weighed averaging of the station elevations of 78 KMA (Korea Meteorological Administration) synoptic stations. A 'real' elevation surface made up from both 78 synoptic and 468 automated weather stations (AWS) was also generated and subtracted from the virtual surface to get elevation difference at each point. The same procedure was done for monthly precipitation to get the precipitation difference at each point. A regression analysis was applied to derive the aspect - specific coefficient of precipitation change with a unit increase in elevation. The elevation difference between 'virtual' and 'real' surface was calculated for each 270m grid points across North Korea and the regression coefficients were applied to obtain the precipitation corrections for the PRISM grid. The correction terms are now added to the PRISM generated low resolution (~2.4 km) precipitation map to produce the 270 m high resolution map compatible with those available for South Korea. According to the final product, the spatial average precipitation for entire territory of North Korea is 1,196 mm for a climatological normal year (1971-2000) with standard deviation of 298 mm.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.280-293
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• 2012

In order to clarify the characteristics of dispersion of volcanic tephra emitted from the Mt. Baegdu with various eruption environment, numerical analysis were performed using numerical models, Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) and FLEXPART. Synoptic conditions at 12 October 2010 was adopted because the volcanic ash of Mt. Baegdu can reach the Korean peninsula and its dispersion pattern was compared with different Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) and particle size. Predominant size of falling out ash flowing in the peninsular is smaller than 0.5 mm and the ash large than the size is difficult to get in the peninsular due to the its weak ability of truculent diffusion. the difference of ash distribution with various VEI scenarios is not so much but number density of ash in the air is dramatically changed. Volcanic ash tends to be deposited easily in eastern coastal area such as Gangneung and Busan, because of the inflow of ash from East Sea and barrier effect of the Taeback mountains along the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. Accumulated amount of ash deposition can be increased in short period in several urban areas.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.333-346
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• 2024

High-resolution medium-range streamflow prediction is crucial for sustainable water quality and aquatic ecosystem management. For reliable medium-range streamflow predictions, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of forcings and to effectively utilize weather forecast data with low spatio-temporal resolutions. In this study, we presented a comparative analysis of medium-range streamflow predictions using the distributed hydrological model, WRF-Hydro, and the numerical weather forecast Global Data Assimilation and Prediction System (GDAPS) in the Geumho River basin, Korea. Multiple forcings, ground observations (AWS&ASOS), numerical weather forecast (GDAPS), and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), were ingested to investigate the performance of streamflow predictions with highresolution WRF-Hydro configuration. In terms of the mean areal accumulated rainfall, GDAPS was overestimated by 36% to 234%, and GLDAS reanalysis data were overestimated by 80% to 153% compared to AWS&ASOS. The performance of streamflow predictions using AWS&ASOS resulted in KGE and NSE values of 0.6 or higher at the Kangchang station. Meanwhile, GDAPS-based streamflow predictions showed high variability, with KGE values ranging from 0.871 to -0.131 depending on the rainfall events. Although the peak flow error of GDAPS was larger or similar to that of GLDAS, the peak flow timing error of GDAPS was smaller than that of GLDAS. The average timing errors of AWS&ASOS, GDAPS, and GLDAS were 3.7 hours, 8.4 hours, and 70.1 hours, respectively. Medium-range streamflow predictions using GDAPS and high-resolution WRF-Hydro may provide useful information for water resources management especially in terms of occurrence and timing of peak flow albeit high uncertainty in flood magnitude.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.697-711
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• 2004

Severe haze, mist, and fog phenomena occurred in the central part of Korea during 15~25 May 2003 resulted in poor visibility and air quality. When these phenomena occurred, Korean peninsula was under the effects of anticyclone. The atmosphere was stable, and wind speed was so weak. Under this meteorological conditions, air quality was worse and worse. The characteristics of aerosol in Seoul, Incheon, and Gosan (Jeju) during this period are investigated from the $PM_{10}$. TSP concentrations and aerosol number concentrations. Concentrations of $PM_{10}$ and TSP measured at KMA increased upto 176 and 230 J.${\mu}g/m^3$ on 22 May 2003, respectively. Aerosol number concentrations of size range from 0.82 to 6.06 ${\mu}m$ increased in Seoul on 17, 19, and 21~24 May 2003, and the concentrations of $NO_2$ and $SO_2$had maximum value of 0.165 ppm at Gwanak Mt. and 0.036 ppm at Guro-dong on 23 May 2003, respectively. Result from analysis on heavy metal elements showed high concentrations of Zn, Pb, Cr, Ni, Cu, and Cd during 20~24 May 2003. This event is examined by comprehensive analyses of synoptic weather conditions, satellite images, concentrations of suspended particles and air pollutants, and heavy metal elements.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.983-999
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• 2010

Wind power energy is one of the favorable and fast growing renewable energies. It is most important for exact analysis of wind to evaluate and forecast the wind power energy. The purpose of this study is to improve the performance of numerical atmospheric model by data assimilation over a complex coastal area. The benefit of the profiler is its high temporal resolution and dense observation data at the lower troposphere. Three wind profiler sites used in this study are inhomogeneously situated near south-western coastal area of Korean Peninsula. The method of the data assimilation for using the profiler to the model simulation is the three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR). The experiment of two cases, with/without assimilation, were conducted for how to effect on model results with wind profiler data. It was found that the assimilated case shows the more reasonable results than the other case compared with vertical observation and surface Automatic Weather Station(AWS) data. Although the effect of sonde data was better than profiler at a higher altitude, the profiler data improves the model performance at lower atmosphere. Comparison with the results of 4 June and 5 June suggests that the efficiency with hourly assimilated profiler data is strongly influenced by synoptic conditions. The reduction rate of Normalized Mean Error(NME), mean bias normalized by averaged wind speed of observation, on 4 June was 28% which was larger than 13% of 5 June. In order to examine the difference in wind power energy, the wind power density(WPD) was calculated and compared.

• Atmosphere
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.331-346
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• 2013

A case study of mesoscale snowfall with polar low signature during 25~26 December 2010 in South Korea is presented. The data used for analysis include surface and upper level weather charts, rain gauge, sea surface temperature, satellite imagery, sounding, and global $1^{\circ}{\times}1^{\circ}$ reanalysis data. The system initiated with a surface trough near the bay of Bohai but quickly intensified to become a polar low within 12 hours. The polar low moved southeastward bringing snowfall to southwestern Korea. There was strong instability layer beneath 800 hPa but baroclinicty was weak and disappeared as the low progressed onto land. Shortwave at 500 hPa and the surface trough became in-phase which hindered the development of the polar low while it approached Korea. However, there were strong tropopause folding (~500 hPa) and high potential vorticity (PV), which allowed the system to maintain its structure and dump 20.3 cm of snow in Jeonju. Synoptic, thermodynamic, dynamic, and moisture analyses reveal that polar low developed in an area of baroclinicity with strong conditional instability and warm air advection at the lower levels. Further, the development of a surface trough to polar low was aided by tropopause folding with PV advection in the upper level, shortwave trough at 500 hPa, and moisture advection with low-level jet (LLJ) of 15 m $s^{-1}$ or more at 850 hPa. Maximum snowfall was concentrated in this region with convection being sustained by latent heat release.

• Atmosphere
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.273-286
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• 2010

The northeast part of China(hereafter Manchuria) is one of Asian dust source regions along with Gobi, Inner Mongolia and Loess Plateau. In this study, a geographical survey over the area was carried out to determine its soil characteristics in June 2009. It revealed that some parts of the area, especially near Keerchin desert, consist of alkali clay soil mixed up with sand. Manchuria, where is a vast cornfield, can be a potential source region of Asian dust from fall to following spring after harvesting. The frequency of Asian dust over the region from 1996 to 2009 was examined using 3-hourly GTS SYNOP data and it showed that the occurrence of Asian dust over the region is high in the springtime. It was also revealed that snow cover is the key parameter affecting on the frequency through the analysis of NCEP reanalysis data. To scrutinize the path and structure of Asian dust from Manchuria, the event on 3~4 April 2008 and 25 January 2010 were intensively investigated with regard to features of synoptic weather patterns, satellite imagery, airstream, naked eye-observations, concentrations of PM10, 2.5 and 1.0. For this case, the Asian dust from the area reached to Korea less than a day. However, the duration time of the dust in Korea was short (< 7 hours). The average of hourly PM10 reached up to $340{\mu}g/m^{3}$ at Baengnyeondo during the period. The high PM2.5 and PM1.0 concentrations were also observed at several sites in Korea, indicating that air pollutants could be transported along with the dust.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 2010

A comprehensive mapping project for agroclimatic zoning in South Korea will end by April 2010, which has required 4 years, a billion won (ca. 0.9 million US dollars) and 22 experts from 7 institutions to complete it. The map database from this project may be categorized into primary, secondary and analytical products. The primary products are called "high definition" digital climate maps (HD-DCMs) and available through the state of the art techniques in geospatial climatology. For example, daily minimum temperature surfaces were prepared by combining the climatic normals (1971-2000 and 1981-2008) of synoptic observations with the simulated thermodynamic nature of cold air by using the raster GIS and microwave temperature profiling which can quantify effects of cold air drainage on local temperature. The spatial resolution of the gridded climate data is 30m for temperature and solar irradiance, and 270m for precipitation. The secondary products are climatic indices produced by statistical analysis of the primary products and includes extremes, sums, and probabilities of climatic events relevant to farming activities at a given grid cell. The analytical products were prepared by driving agronomic models with the HD-DCMs and dates of full bloom, the risk of freezing damage, and the fruit quality are among the examples. Because the spatial resolution of local climate information for agronomic practices exceeds the current weather service scale, HD-DCMs and the value-added products are expected to supplement the insufficient spatial resolution of official climatology. In this lecture, state of the art techniques embedded in the products, how to combine the techniques with the existing geospatial information, and agroclimatic zoning for major crops and fruits in South Korea will be provided.