• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.57-67
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• 2011

Aerosol lidar ratio (extinction-to-backscatter ratio) at 532 nm was determined using 4-year measurements of elastic-backscatter lidar and sky radiometer at Seoul National University of Seoul, Korea. The mean lidar ratio (with standard deviation) based on 4 years of measurements is found to be $61.7{\pm}16.5$ sr, and weak seasonal variations are noted with a maximum in JJA ($68.1{\pm}16.8$ sr) and a minimum in DJF ($57.2{\pm}17.9$ sr). The lidar ratios for clean, dust, and polluted conditions are estimated to be $45.0{\pm}9.5$ sr, $51.7{\pm}13.7$ sr, and $62.2{\pm}13.2$ sr, respectively. While the lidar ratio for the polluted condition is appears to be consistent with previous studies, clean and dust conditions tend to have larger ratios, compared to previous estimates. This discrepancy is thought to be mainly due to the anthropogenic aerosols existing throughout the year around Seoul, which may cause increased lidar ratios even for clean and dust conditions.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.31-47
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• 2020

Although interest in air quality has increased due to the frequent occurrence of high-concentration fine particulate matter recently, the official fine particulate matter measuring network has failed to provide spatial detailed air quality information. This is because current measurement equipment has a high cost of installation and maintenance, which limits the composition of the measuring network at high resolution. To compensate for the limitations of the current official measuring network, this study constructed a spatial high density measuring network using the fine particulate matter simple measuring device developed by Observer, W-Station. W-Station installed 48 units on Jeju Island and measured PM_2.5 for six months. The data collected in W-Station were corrected by applying the first regression equation for each section, and these measurements were compared and analyzed based on the official measurements installed in Jeju Island. As a result, the time series of PM_2.5 concentrations measured in W-Station showed concentration characteristics similar to those of the environmental pollution measuring network. In particular, the results of comparing the measurements of W-Station within a 2 km radius of the reference station and the reference station showed that the coefficient of determination (R²) was 0.79, 0.81, 0.67, respectively. In addition, for W-Station within a 1 km radius, the coefficient of determination was 0.85, 0.82, 0.68, respectively, showing slightly higher correlation. In addition, the local concentration deviation of some regions could be confirmed through 48 high density measuring networks. These results show that if a network of measurements is constructed with adequate spatial distribution using a number of simple meters with a certain degree of proven performance, the measurements are effective in monitoring local air quality and can be fully utilized to supplement or replace formal measurements.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.125-132
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• 2021

Fresh PM_2.5 smokes emitted from combustion of four biomass materials (pellet, palm fruit fiber (PFF), PKS, and sawdust) in a laboratory-controlled environment were characterized using an attenuated total reflectance-fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) technique. In smoke samples emitted from combustion of pellets, PFF and PKS, which is being used as boiler fuels for greenhouses in rural areas, the organic carbon/elemental carbon (OC/EC) ratios in PM_2.5 were very high (14.0-35.5), whereas in sawdust smoke samples they were significantly low (<4.0) due to the combustion method close to flaming combustion. ATR-FTIR analysis showed that OH(3400-3250 cm^-1), CH₃(2958-2840 cm^-1), CH₂(2910 cm^-1 and 2850 cm^-1), ketone(1726-1697 cm^-1), C=C(1607-1606 cm^-1 and 1515-1514 cm^-1), lignin (1463-1462 cm^-1 and 1430-1428 cm^-1) and -NO₂(1360-1370 cm^-1) peaks were identified in all biomass burning (BB) smoke samples. However, additional peaks appeared depending on the type of biomass. Among the four types of biomass materials, an additional peak of the methylene group CH₃(2872-2870 cm^-1) appeared only in PFF and PKS smoke samples, and a peak of C=O(1685 cm^-1) was also confirmed. And in the case of PKS smoke samples, a peak of aromatic C=C(1593 cm^-1 and 1476 cm^-1) that did not appear in other BB samples was also observed. This indicates that the molecular structure of organic compounds emitted during BB differs depending on the type of biomass materials. The results of this study are expected to provide valuable information to more specifically reveal the effect of BB on PM_2.5 collected in the atmospheric environment.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_2
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• pp.1591-1604
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• 2023

In ocean color remote sensing, atmospheric correction is a vital process for ensuring the accuracy and reliability of ocean color products. Furthermore, in recent years, the remote sensing community has intensified its requirements for understanding errors in satellite data. Accordingly, research is currently addressing errors in remote sensing reflectance (R_rs) resulting from inaccuracies in meteorological variables (total ozone, pressure, wind field, and total precipitable water) used as auxiliary data for atmospheric correction. However, there has been no investigation into the error in R_rs caused by the variability of the water vapor profile, despite it being a recognized error source. In this study, we used the Second Simulation of a Satellite Signal Vector version 2.1 simulation to compute errors in water vapor transmittance arising from variations in the water vapor profile within the GOCI-II observation area. Subsequently, we conducted an analysis of the associated errors in ocean color products. The observed water vapor profile not only exhibited a complex shape but also showed significant variations near the surface, leading to differences of up to 0.007 compared to the US standard 62 water vapor profile used in the GOCI-II atmospheric correction. The resulting variation in water vapor transmittance led to a difference in aerosol reflectance estimation, consequently introducing errors in R_rs across all GOCI-II bands. However, the error of R_rs in the 412-555 nm due to the difference in the water vapor profile band was found to be below 2%, which is lower than the required accuracy. Also, similar errors were shown in other ocean color products such as chlorophyll-a concentration, colored dissolved organic matter, and total suspended matter concentration. The results of this study indicate that the variability in water vapor profiles has minimal impact on the accuracy of atmospheric correction and ocean color products. Therefore, improving the accuracy of the input data related to the water vapor column concentration is even more critical for enhancing the accuracy of ocean color products in terms of water vapor absorption correction.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1029-1042
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• 2016

The initial and boundary conditions are important factors in regional chemical transport modeling systems. The method of generating the chemical boundary conditions for regional air quality models tends to be different from the dynamically varying boundary conditions in global chemical transport models. In this study, the impact of real time Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service (CAMS) re-analysis data from the modeling atmospheric composition and climate project interim implementation (MACC) on the regional air quality in the Korean Peninsula was carried out using the community multi-scale air quality modeling system (CMAQ). A comparison between conventional global data and CAMS for numerical assessments was also conducted. Although the horizontal resolution of the CAMS re-analysis data is not higher than the conventionally provided data, the simulated particulate matter (PM) concentrations with boundary conditions for CAMS re-analysis is more reasonable than any other data, and the estimation accuracy over the entire Korean peninsula, including the Seoul and Daegu metropolitan areas, was improved. Although an inland area such as the Daegu metropolitan area often has large uncertainty in PM prediction, the level of improvement in the prediction for the Daegu metropolitan area is higher than in the coastal area of the western part of the Korean peninsula.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 2014

An increasing number of recent studies have focused on the impact of particulate matter on human health. As a model for atmospheric particulate inhalation, we investigated the effects of inhaled carbon black nanoparticles (CBNP) on mice with bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis. The CNBPs were generated by a novel aerosolization process, and the mice were exposed to the aerosol for 4 hours. We found that CBNP inhalation exacerbated lung inflammation, as evidenced by histopathology analysis and by the expression levels of interleukin-6 protein, fibronectin, and interferon-${\gamma}$ mRNAs in lung tissues. Notably, fibronectin mRNA expression showed a statistically significant increase in expression after CBNP exposure. These data suggest that the concentration of CBNPs delivered (calculated to be $12.5{\mu}g/m^3$) can aggravate lung inflammation in mice. Our results also suggest that the inhalation of ultrafine particles like PM 2.5 is an impactful environmental risk factor for humans, particularly in susceptible populations with predisposing lung conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.232-236
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• 2000

Multi-regression statistical analyses were applied for the water quality data of shallow alluvial ground water (n = 47) collected from the Youngdeok area, in order to quantitatively generalize the natural (non-anthropogenic) causes of regional water quality variation. Seven samples having the high contamination index ( $C_{a}$ > 3) reflect the striong effects by anthropogenic activity. Most of the alluvial groundwaters have acquired their quality primarily due to the dissolution of carbonate minerals. The results of multi-regression analysis show that chlorine is mainly derived from seawater effect. Sulfur isotopic compositions of dissolved sulfur and the S $O_4$/Cl ratio also enable us to discriminate the samples (n = 18) which are affected by atmospheric input of marine aerosol (sea-spray) and also by mixing between freshwater and seawater. Hydrogen and oxygen isotope data of the samples collected lie close to the local meteoric water line obtained from nearby Pohang city but has lower slope (5.45) on the $\delta$D-$^{18}$ O plot, indicating that alluvial groundwater was recharged from infiltrated meteoric water which has undergone some degree of kinetic evaporation. The estimated initial isotopic composition of the recharged water ($\delta$D = -74.8$^{0}$ /$_{00}$, $\delta$$^{18}$ O = -10.8$^{[-1000]}$ /$_{[-1000]}$ ) suggests that the alluvial ground water recharge largely occurs during summer storm events.s.s.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.323-343
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• 2020

Observation data measured at Ieodo Ocean Research Station (IORS) have been utilized in oceanographic and atmospheric studies since 2003. Sea level data observed at the IORS have not been paid attention as compared with many other variables such as aerosol, radiation, turbulent flux, wind, wave, fog, temperature, and salinity. Total sea level rises at the IORS (5.6 mm yr^-1) from both satellite and tide-gauge observations were higher than those in the northeast Asian marginal seas (5.4 mm yr^-1) and the world (4.6 mm yr^-1) from satellite observation from 2009 to 2018. The rates of thermosteric, halosteric, and steric sea level rises were 2.7-4.8, -0.7-2.6, 2.3-7.4 mm yr^-1 from four different calculating methods using observations. The rising rate of the steric sea level was higher than that of the total sea level in the case with additional data quality control. Calculating the non-steric sea level was not found to yield meaningful results, despite the ability to calculate non-steric sea level by simply subtracting the steric sea level from total sea level. This uncertainty did not arise from the data analysis but from a lack of good data, even though tide, temperature, and salinity data were quality controlled two times by Korea Hydrographic and Oceanography Agency. The status of the IORS data suggests that the maintenance management of observation systems, equipment, and data quality control should be improved to facilitate data use from the IORS.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.642-655
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• 2013

In this study, semi-continuous measurements of $PM_{2.5}$ mass, organic and elemental carbon (OC and EC), black carbon (BC), and ionic species concentrations were made for the period of April 03~13, 2012, at a South Area Supersite at Gwangju. Possible sources causing the high concentrations of major chemical species in $PM_{2.5}$ observed during a haze episode were investigated. The measurement results, along with meteorological parameters, gaseous pollutants data, air mass back trajectory analyses and PSCF (potential source contribution function) results, were used to study the haze episode. Substantial enhancements of OC, EC, BC, $K^+$, $SO{_4}^{2-}$, $NO{_3}{^-}$, $NH{_4}{^+}$, and CO concentrations were closely associated with air masses coming from regions of forest fires in southeastern China, suggesting likely an impact of the forest fires. Also the PSCF maps for EC, OC, $SO{_4}^{2-}$, and $K^+$ demonstrate further that the long-range transport of smoke plumes of forest fires detected over the southeastern China could be a possible source of haze phenomena observed at the site. Another possible source leading to haze formation was likely from photochemistry of precursor gases such as volatile organic compounds, $SO_2$, and $NO_2$, resulting in accumulation of secondary organic aerosol, $SO{_4}^{2-}$ and $NO{_3}{^-}$. Throughout the episode, local wind directions were between 200 and $230^{\circ}C$, where two industrial areas are situated, with moderate wind speeds of 3~5 m/s, resulting in highly elevated concentration of $SO_2$ with a maximum of 15 ppb. The $SO{_4}^{2-}$ peak occurring in the afternoon hours coincided with maximum ambient temperature ($24^{\circ}C$) and ozone concentration (~100 ppb), and were driven by photochemistry of $SO_2$. As a result, the pattern of $SO{_4}^{2-}$ variations in relation to wind direction, $SO_2$ and $O_3$ concentrations, and the strong correlation between $SO_2$ and $SO{_4}^{2-}$ ($R^2=0.76$) suggests that in addition to the impact of smoke plumes from forest fires in the southeastern China, local $SO_2$ emissions were likely an important source of $SO{_4}^{2-}$ leading to haze formation at the site.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.538-555
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to understand $PM_{2.5}$ chemical characteristics on the Suwon/Yongin area and further to quantitatively estimate $PM_{2.5}$ source contributions. The $PM_{2.5}$ sampling was carried out by a high-volume air sampler at the Kyung Hee University-Global Campus from November, 2010 to October, 2011. The 40 chemical species were then analyzed by using ICP-AES(Ag, Ba, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Si, Ti, V and Zn), IC ($Na^+$, $K^+$, $NH_4{^+}$, $Mg^{2+}$, $Ca^{2+}$, $NO_3{^-}$, ${SO_4}^{2-}$ and $Cl^-$), DRI/OGC (OC1, OC2, OC3, OC4, OP, EC1, EC2 and EC3) and GC-FID (acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[a] pyrene, indeno[1,2,3-cd] pyrene, benzo[g,h,i]perylene and dibenzo[a,h,]anthracene). When applying PMF model after performing proper data treatment, a total of 10 sources was identified and their contributions were quantitatively estimated. The average contribution to $PM_{2.5}$ emitted from each source was determined as follows; 26.3% from secondary aerosol source, 15.5% from soil and road dust emission, 15.3% from vehicle emission, 15.3% from illegal biomass burning, 12.2% from incineration, 7.2% from oil combustion source, 4.9% from industrial related source, and finally 3.2% from coal combustion source. In this study we used the ratios of PAHs concentration as markers to double check whether the sources were reasonably classified or not. Finally we provided basic information on the major $PM_{2.5}$ sources in order to improve the air quality in the study area.