• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.42-50
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• 2016

This study presents a performance evaluation of four different land surface models (LSM) available in Weather Forecast Research (WRF). The research site was located in Haean Basin in South Korea. The basin is very unique by its geomorphology and topography. For a better representation of the complex terrain in the mesoscale model were used a high resolution topography data with a spatial resolution of 30 meters. Additionally, land-use layer was corrected by ground mapping data-sets. The observation equipments used in the study were an ultrasonic anemometer with a gas analyzer, an automatic weather station and a tethered balloon sonde. The model simulation covers a four-day period during autumn. The result shows significant impact of LSM on meteorological simulation. The best agreement between observation and simulation was found in the case of WRF with Noah LSM (WRF-Noah). The WRF with Rapid Update Cycle LSM (WRF-RUC) has a very good agreement with temperature profiles due to successfully predicted fog which appeared during measurements and affected the radiation budget at the basin floor. The WRF with Pleim and Xiu LSM (WRF-PX) and WRF with Thermal Diffusion LSM (WRF-TD) performed insufficiently for simulation of heat fluxes. Both overestimated the sensible and underestimated the latent heat fluxes during the daytime.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.639-657
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• 2015

There is an increasing need to improve the air quality over South Korea to protect public health from local and remote anthropogenic pollutant emissions that are in an increasing trend. Here, we evaluate the performance of the WRF-Chem (Weather Research and Forecasting-Chemistry) model in simulating near-surface air quality of major Korean cities, and investigate the impacts of time-varying chemical initial and lateral boundary conditions (IC/BCs) on the air quality simulation using a chemical downscaling technique. The model domain was configured over the East Asian region and anthropogenic MICS-Asia 2010 emissions and biogenic MEGAN-2 emissions were applied with RACM gaseous chemistry and MADE/SORGAM aerosol mechanism. Two simulations were conducted for a 30-days period on April 2010 with chemical IC/BCs from the WRF-Chem default chemical species profiles ('WRF experiment') and the MOZART-4 (Model for OZone And Related chemical Tracers version 4) ('WRF_MOZART experiment'), respectively. The WRF_MOZART experiment has showed a better performance to predict near-surface CO, $NO_2$, $SO_2$, and $O_3$ mixing ratios at 7 major Korean cities than the WRF experiment, showing lower mean bias error (MBE) and higher index of agreement (IOA). The quantitative impacts of the chemical IC/BCs have depended on atmospheric residence time of the pollutants as well as the relative difference of chemical mixing ratios between the WRF and WRF_MOZART experiments at the lateral boundaries. Specifically, the WRF_MOZART experiment has reduced MBE in CO and O3 mixing ratios by 60~80 ppb and 5~10 ppb over South Korea than those in the WRF-Chem default simulation, while it has a marginal impact on $NO_2$ and $SO_2$ mixing ratios. Without using MOZART-4 chemical IC, the WRF simulation has required approximately 6-days chemical spin-up time for the East Asian model domain. Overall, the results indicate that realistic chemical IC/BCs are prerequisite in the WRF-Chem simulation to improve a forecast skill of local air quality over South Korea, even in case the model domain is sufficiently large to represent anthropogenic emissions from China, Japan, and South Korea.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.45-54
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• 2020

High-resolution meteorological simulations were conducted using a Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with an Urban Canopy Model (UCM) in the Ulsan Metropolitan Region (UMR) where large-scale industrial facilities are located on the coast. We improved the land cover input data for the WRF-UCM by reclassifying the default urban category into four detailed areas (low and high-density residential areas, commercial areas, and industrial areas) using subdivided data (class 3) of the Environmental and Geographical Information System (EGIS). The urban area accounted for about 12% of the total UMR and the largest proportion (47.4%) was in the industrial area. Results from the WRF-UCM simulation in a summer episode with high temperatures showed that the modeled temperatures agreed greatly with the observations. Comparison with a standard WRF simulation (WRF-BASE) indicated that the temporal and spatial variations in surface air temperature in the UMR were properly captured. Specifically, the WRF-UCM reproduced daily maximum and nighttime variations in air temperature very well, indicating that our model can improve the accuracy of temperature simulation for a summer heatwave. However, the WRF-UCM somewhat overestimated wind speed in the UMR largely due to an increased air temperature gradient between land and sea.

• Atmosphere
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.85-97
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• 2018

This study evaluates the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in reproducing the present-day (1981~2005) precipitation over Far East Asia and South Korea. The WRF model is configured with 25-km horizontal resolution within the context of the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) - East Asia Phase 2. The initial and lateral boundary forcing for the WRF simulation are derived from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast Interim reanalysis. According to our results, WRF model shows a reasonable performance to reproduce the features of precipitation, such as seasonal climatology, annual and inter-annual variabilities, seasonal march of monsoon rainfall and extreme precipitation. In spite of such model's ability to simulate major features of precipitation, systematic biases are found in the downscaled simulation in some sub-regions and seasons. In particular, the WRF model systematically tends to overestimate (underestimate) precipitation over Far East Asia (South Korea), and relatively large biases are evident during the summer season. In terms of inter-annual variability, WRF shows an overall smaller (larger) standard deviation in the Far East Asia (South Korea) compared to observation. In addition, WRF overestimates the frequency and amount of weak precipitation, but underestimates those of heavy precipitation. Also, the number of wet days, the precipitation intensity above the 95 percentile, and consecutive wet days (consecutive dry days) are overestimated (underestimated) over eastern (western) part of South Korea. The results of this study can be used as reference data when providing information about projections of fine-scale climate change over East Asia.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.26 no.12
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• pp.1307-1319
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• 2017

In this study, we investigated the impact of different initial data on atmospheric modeling results using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. Four WRF simulations were conducted with different initialization in March 2015, which showed the highest monthly mean $PM_{10}$ concentration in the recent ten years (2006-2015). The results of WRF simulations using NCEP-FNL and ERA-Interim were compared with observed surface temperature and wind speed data, and the difference of grid nudging effect on WRF simulation between the two data were also analyzed. The FNL simulation showed better accuracy in the simulated temperature and wind speed than the Interim simulation, and the difference was clear in the coastal area. The grid nudging effect on the Interim simulation was larger than that of the FNL simulation. Despite of the higher spatial resolution of ERA-Interim data compared to NCEP-FNL data, the Interim simulation showed slightly worse accuracy than those of the FNL simulation. It was due to uncertainties associated with the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) field in the ERA-Interim data. The results from the Interim simulation with different SST data showed significantly improved accuracy than the standard Interim simulation. It means that the SST field in the ERA-Interim data need to be optimized for the better WRF simulation. In conclusion, although the WRF simulation with ERA-Interim data does not show reasonable accuracy compared to those with NCEP-FNL data, it would be able to be Improved by optimizing the SST variable.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.33-44
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• 2020

Recently, a variety of modeling studies have been conducted to examine the air quality over South Korea during the Korea - United States Air Quality (KORUS-AQ) campaign period (May 1 to June 10, 2016). This study investigates the impact of different meteorological initializations on atmospheric modeling results. We conduct several simulations during the KORUS-AQ period using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with two different initial datasets, which is FNL of NCEP and ERA5 of ECMWF. Comparing the raw initial data, ERA5 showed better accuracy in the temperature, wind speed, and mixing ratio fields than those of NCEP-FNL. On the other hand, the results of WRF simulations with ERA5 showed better accuracy in the simulated temperature and mixing ratio than those with FNL, except for wind speed. Comparing the nudging efficiency of temperature and wind speed fields, the grid nudging effect on the FNL simulation was larger than that on the ERA5 simulation, but the results of mixing ratio field was the opposite. Overall, WRF simulation with ERA5 data showed a better performance for temperature and mixing ratio simulations than that with FNL data. For wind speed simulation, however, WRF simulation with FNL data indicated more accurate results compared to that with ERA5 data.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.24 no.E2
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• pp.92-101
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• 2008

The objective of this study is to evaluate and improve the capability of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in simulating fog and visibility in local airports over Korea. The WRF model system is statistically evaluated for the 48-fog cases over Korea from 2003 to 2006. Based on the 4-yr evaluations, attempts are made to improve the simulation skill of fog and visibility over Korea by revising the statistical coefficients in the visibility algorithms of the WRF model. A comparison of four existing visibility algorithms in the WRF model shows that uncertainties in the visibility algorithms include additional degree of freedom in accuracy of numerical fog forecasts over Korea. A revised statistical algorithm using a linear-regression between the observed visibility and simulated hydrometeors and humidity near the surface exhibits overall improvement in the visibility forecasts.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.409-431
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• 2014

In this study, the characteristics in the simulation of high-resolution coastal weather, i.e. sea surface wind (SSW) and significant wave height (SWH), were studied in a southeastern coastal region of Korea using the WRF and SWAN models. This analyses was performed based on the effects of various input factors in the WRF and SWAN model during M-Case (moderate days with average 1.8 m SWH and $8.4ms^{-1}$ SSW) and R-Case (rough days with average 3.4 m SWH and $13.0ms^{-1}$ SSW) according to the strength of SSW and SWH. The effects of topography (TP), land cover (LC), and sea surface temperature (SST) for the simulation of SSW with the WRF model were somewhat high on v-component winds along the coastline and the adjacent sea of a more detailed grid simulation (333 m) during R-Case. The LC effect was apparent in all grid simulations during both cases regardless of the strength of SSW, whereas the TP effect had shown a difference (decrease or increase) of wind speed according to the strength of SSW (M-Case or R-Case). In addition, the effects of monthly mean currents (CR) and deepwater design waves (DW) for the simulation of SWH with the SWAN model predicted good agreement with observed SWH during R-Case compared to the M-Case. For example, the effects of CR and DW contributed to the increase of SWH during R-Case regardless of grid resolution, whereas the differences (decrease or increase) of SWH occurred according to each effect (CR or DW) during M-Case.

• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.105-118
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• 2017

This study assesses the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in reproducing regional climate over CORDEX-East Asia Phase 2 domain with different cumulus parameterization schemes [Kain-Fritch (KF), Betts-Miller-Janjic (BM), and Grell-Devenyi-Ensemble (GD)]. The model is integrated for 27 months from January 1979 to March 1981 and the initial and boundary conditions are derived from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast Interim Reanalysis (ERA-Interim). The WRF model reasonably reproduces the temperature and precipitation characteristics over East Asia, but the regional scale responses are very sensitive to cumulus parameterization schemes. In terms of mean bias, WRF model with BM scheme shows the best performance in terms of summer/winter mean precipitation as well as summer mean temperature throughout the North East Asia. In contrast, the seasonal mean precipitation is generally overestimated (underestimated) by KF (GD) scheme. In addition, the seasonal variation of the temperature and precipitation is well simulated by WRF model, but with an overestimation in summer precipitation derived from KF experiment and with an underestimation in wet season precipitation from BM and GD schemes. Also, the frequency distribution of daily precipitation derived from KF and BM experiments (GD experiment) is well reproduced, except for the overestimation (underestimation) in the intensity range above (less) then $2.5mm\;d^{-1}$. In the case of the amount of daily precipitation, all experiments tend to underestimate (overestimate) the amount of daily precipitation in the low-intensity range < $4mm\;d^{-1}$ (high-intensity range > $12mm\;d^{-1}$). This type of error is largest in the KF experiment.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.309-323
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• 2006

We focus on the improvement in the simulation of sea surface wind over complex coastal area located in the southeastern Korea. In this study, it was carried out sensitivity experiment based on PBL schemes and dynamic frame of MM5 and WRF. Two widely used PBL parameterization schemes were chosen : Medium-Range Forecast (MRF) and Mellor-Yamada-Janjic (MYJ). Thereafter, two cases of sea fog days with weak wind speed and typhoon days with strong wind speed were simulated and analyzed. The result of experiments indicated that wind fold of WRF model was shown more similar distribution with observational data, compared with that of MM5. Simulation of sea surface wind during sea fog days with weak wind speed and typhoon days with strong wind speed were shown similar horizontal distribution with observational data using MYJ and MRF PBL schemes of WRF model, respectively. Horizontal distribution of sea surface wind was more sensitive according to dynamic frame and PBL Schemes of model during sea fog days and typhoon days, respectively.