• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.109-120
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• 2010

Heat wave is a disaster, which increases morbidity and mortality in temperate regions. Climate model results indicate that both intensity and frequency of heat wave in the future will be increased. This study shows the result about relationship between excess mortality and offensive airmass in 7 metropolitan cities, and an operational Heat-Health Warning System (HHWS) in Korea. Using meteorological observations, the Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC) has been used to classify each summer day from 1982 to 2007 into specific airmass categories for each city. Through the comparative study analysis of the daily airmass type and the corresponding daily mortality rate, Dry Tropical (DT), and Moist Tropical plus (MT+) were identified as the most offensive airmasses with the highest rates of mortality. Therefore, using the multiple linear regression, forecast algorithm was produced to predict the number of the excess deaths that will occur with each occurrence of the DT and MT+ days. Moreover, each excess death forecast algorithm was implemented for the system warning criteria based on the regional acclimatization differences. HHWS will give warnings to the city's residents under offensive weather situations which can lead to deterioration in public health, under the climate change.

• Atmosphere
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.55-67
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• 2024

This paper aims to provide a detailed introduction to the concept of the Ratio of Predictable Component (RPC) and the Signal-to-Noise Paradox. Then, we derive insights from them by exploring the paradoxical features by conducting a seasonal and regional analysis through ensemble expansion in KMA's climate prediction system (GloSea). We also provide an explanation of the ensemble generation method, with a specific focus on stochastic physics. Through this study, we can provide the predictability limits of our forecasting system, and find way to enhance it. On a global scale, RPC reaches a value of 1 when the ensemble is expanded to a maximum of 56 members, underlining the significance of ensemble expansion in the climate prediction system. The feature indicating RPC paradoxically exceeding 1 becomes particularly evident in the winter North Atlantic and the summer North Pacific. In the Siberian Continent, predictability is notably low, persisting even as the ensemble size increases. This region, characterized by a low RPC, is considered challenging for making reliable predictions, highlighting the need for further improvement in the model and initialization processes related to land processes. In contrast, the tropical ocean demonstrates robust predictability while maintaining an RPC of 1. Through this study, we have brought to attention the limitations of potential predictability within the climate prediction system, emphasizing the necessity of leveraging predictable signals with high RPC values. We also underscore the importance of continuous efforts aimed at improving models and initializations to overcome these limitations.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.627-637
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• 2019

Severe and long-lasting heat waves over Korea and many regions in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) during the 2016 summer, have been attributed to global warming and atmospheric teleconnection coupled with tropical convective activities. Yet, what controls subseasonsal time scale of heat wave has not been well addressed. Here we show a critical role of two dominant boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) modes, denominated as BSISO1 and BSISO2, on modulating temporal structure of heat waves in the midst of similar climate background. The 2016 summer was characterized by La Nina development following decay of strong 2015/2016 El Nino. The NH circumglobal teleconnection pattern (CGT) and associated high temperature anomalies and heat waves were largely driven by convective activity over northwest India and Pakistan during summer associated with La Nina development. However, the heat wave event in Korea from late July to late August was accompanied by the phase 7~8 of 30~60-day BSISO1 characterized by convective activity over the South China Sea and Western North Pacific and anticyclonic circulation (AC) anomaly over East Asia. Although the 2010 summer had very similar climate anomalies as the 2016 summer with La Nina development and CGT, short-lasting but frequent heat waves were occurred during August associated with the phase 1~2 of 10~30-day BSISO2 characterized by convective activity over the Philippine and South China Sea and AC anomaly over East Asia. This study has an implication on importance of BSISO for better understanding mechanism and temporal structure of heat waves in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.63 no.6
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• pp.61-75
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• 2021

This study aims to assess the changes in crop water requirement of paddy and upland according to future climate and land use changes scenarios. Changes in the spatiotemporal distribution of temperature and precipitation are factors that lower the stability of agricultural water supply, and predicting the changes in crop water requirement in consideration of climate change can prevent the waste of limited water resources. Meanwhile, due to the recent changes in the agricultural product consumption structure, the area of paddy and upland has been changing, and it is necessary to consider future land use changes in establishing an appropriate water use plan. Climate change scenarios were derived from the four GCMs of the CMIP6, and climate data were extracted under two future scenarios, namely SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5. Future land use changes were predicted using the FLUS (Future Land Use Simulation) model. Crop water requirement in paddy was calculated as the sum of evapotranspiration and infiltration based on the water balance in a paddy field, and crop water requirement in upland was estimated as the evapotranspiration value by applying Penman-Monteith method. It was found that the crop water requirement for both paddy and upland increased as we go to the far future, and the degree of increase and variability by time showed different results for each GCM. The results derived from this study can be used as basic data to develop sustainable water resource management techniques considering future watershed environmental changes.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.117-117
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• 2016

The natural hydrologic regime is intimately tied to the structure and function of stream and riparian ecosystems. Consequently, understanding the nature and extent of perturbations to the hydrologic regime, stemming from episodic-to-seasonal and longer-term climatic variations, as well as anthropogenic influences is an important starting point for developing an improved understanding of the coupled human-environmental systems. Herein, we pursued to explicate sensitivity of ecologically relevant flow metrics to climate variability and extremes in the five major river basins, Korea.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.851-864
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• 2015

This study analyzed the climate regime shift using statistical change-point analysis on the time-series tropical cyclone (TC) frequency that affected Japan in July to September. The result showed that there was a significant change in 1995 and since then, it showed a trend of rapidly decreasing frequency. To determine the reason for this, differences between 1995 to 2012 (9512) period and 1978 to 1994 (7894) period were analayzed. First, regarding TC genesis, TCs during the 9512 period showed a characteristic of genesis from the southeast quadrant of the tropical and subtropical western North Pacific and TCs during the 7894 period showed their genesis from the northwest quadrant. Regarding a TC track, TCs in the 7894 period had a strong trend of moving from the far east sea of the Philippines via the East China Sea to the mid-latitude region in East Asia while TCs in the 9512 period showed a trend of moving from the Philippines toward the southern part of China westward. Thus, TC intensity in the 7894 period, which can absorb sufficient energy from the sea as they moved a long distance over the sea, was stronger than that of 9512. Large-scale environments were analyzed to determine the cause of such difference in TC activity occurred between two periods. During the 9512 period, anomalous cold and dry anticyclones were developed strongly in the East Asia continent. As a result, Korea and Japan were affected by the anomalous northerlies thereby preventing TCs in this period from moving toward the mid-latitude region in East Asia. Instead, anomalous easterlies (anomalous trade wind) were developed in the tropical western Pacific so that a high passage frequency from the Philippine to the south China region along the anomalous steering flows was revealed. The characteristics of the anomalous cold and dry anticyclone developed in the East Asia continent were also confirmed by the analysis of air temperature, relative humidity and sensible heat net flux showing that most regions in East Asia had negative values.

• Proceedings of The Korean Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.161-178
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• 2003

Agriculture is probably the most weather-dependent of all human activities. Variations lil climate have been, and continue to be, the principal source of fluctuations in global food production, particularly in the semi-arid tropical countries of the developing world. Throughout history, extremes of heat and cold, droughts and floods, and various forms of violent weather have wreaked havoc on the agricultural systems that depend on for food.(omitted)

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.371-384
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• 2014

This study developed a new algorithm of extreme rainfall extraction based on the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) and the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Satellite image data and evaluated its applicability for the heavy rainfall event in July-2011 in Seoul, South Korea. The power-series-regression-based Z-R relationship was employed for taking into account for empirical relationships between TRMM/PR, TRMM/VIRS, COMS, and Automatic Weather System(AWS) at each elevation. The estimated Z-R relationship ($Z=303R^{0.72}$) agreed well with observation from AWS (correlation coefficient=0.57). The estimated 10-minute rainfall intensities from the COMS satellite using the Z-R relationship generated underestimated rainfall intensities. For a small rainfall event the Z-R relationship tended to overestimated rainfall intensities. However, the overall patterns of estimated rainfall were very comparable with the observed data. The correlation coefficients and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 10-minute rainfall series from COMS and AWS gave 0.517, and 3.146, respectively. In addition, the averaged error value of the spatial correlation matrix ranged from -0.530 to -0.228, indicating negative correlation. To reduce the error by extreme rainfall estimation using satellite datasets it is required to take into more extreme factors and improve the algorithm through further study. This study showed the potential utility of multi-geostationary satellite data for building up sub-daily rainfall and establishing the real-time flood alert system in ungauged watersheds.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.575-595
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• 2020

The characteristics of winds associated with tropical cyclones are of great significance in many engineering fields. This paper presents an investigation of wind characteristics over a coastal urban terrain based on field measurements collected from multiple cup anemometers and ultrasonic anemometers equipped at 13 height levels on a 356-m-high meteorological tower in Shenzhen during severe Typhoon Hato. Several wind quantities, including wind spectrum, gust factor, turbulence intensity and length scale as well as wind profile, are presented and discussed. Specifically, the probability distributions of fluctuating wind speeds are analyzed in connection with the normal distribution and the generalized extreme value distribution. The von Karman spectral model is found to be suitable to depict the energy distributions of three-dimensionally fluctuating winds. Gust factors, turbulence intensity and length scale are determined and discussed. Moreover, this paper presents the wind profiles measured during the typhoon, and a comparative study of the vertical distribution of wind speeds from the field measurements and existing empirical models is performed. The influences of the topography features and wind speeds on the wind profiles were investigated based on the field-measured wind records. In general, the empirical models can provide reasonable predictions for the measured wind speed profiles over a typical coastal urban area during a severe typhoon.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2012

High-resolution wind data were acquired from a 100-m high offshore tower during the passage of Typhoon Hagupit in September, 2008. The meteorological tower was equipped with an ultrasonic anemometer and a number of cup anemometers at heights between 10 and 100 m. Wind characteristics of the strong typhoon, such as mean wind speed and wind direction, turbulence intensity, turbulence integral length scale, gust factor and power spectra of wind velocity, vertical profiles of mean wind speed were investigated in detail based on the wind data recorded during the strong typhoon. The measured results revealed that the wind characteristics in different stages during the typhoon varied remarkably. Through comparison with non-typhoon wind measurements, the phenomena of enhanced levels of turbulence intensity, gust factors, turbulence integral length scale and spectral magnitudes in typhoon boundary layer were observed. The monitored data and analysis results are expected to be useful for the wind-resistant design of offshore structures and buildings on seashores in typhoon-prone regions.