• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.190-203
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• 2015

VRI(Vulnerability-Resilience Index), which is defined as a function of 3 variables: climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, has been quantified for the case of Typhoon which is one of the extreme weathers that will become more serious as climate change proceeds. Because VRI is only indicating the relative importance of vulnerability between regions, the VRI quantification is prerequisite for the effective adaptation policy for climate in Korea. For this purpose, damage statistics such as amount of damage, occurrence frequency, and major damaged districts caused by Typhoon over the past 20 years, has been employed. According to the VRI definition, we first calculated VRI over every district in the case of both with and without weighting factors of climate exposure proxy variables. For the quantitative estimation of weighting factors, we calculated correlation coefficients (R) for each of the proxy variables against damage statistics of Typhoon, and then used R as weighting factors of proxy variables. The results without applying weighting factors indicates some biases between VRI and damage statistics in some regions, but most of biases has been improved by applying weighting factors. Finally, due to the relations between VRI and damage statistics, we are able to quantify VRI expressed as a unit of KRW, showing that VRI=1 is approximately corresponding to 500 hundred million KRW. This methodology of VRI quantification employed in this study, can be also practically applied to the number of future climate scenario studies over Korea.

• Atmosphere
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.29-39
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• 2003

Proxy data in the historical period in Japan since the 9th century has been first described and their analyzed fluctuation series were shown. Secondly, the climatic records before and after the Meiji restoration in 1868 were mentioned. Thirdly, available date sets of historical climatic records in Japan are listed. Lastly, published records and tables for Japan during the recent years were overviewed. Some discussion on the climatic records and tables is given as concluding remarks.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.5349-5354
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• 2014

Climate change is one of the most important factors increasing a system's vulnerability. Therefore, various methods have been applied to evaluate the vulnerability to develop an appropriate adaptation policy to minimize the effects of climate change. On the other hand, it has barely been used to examine the suitability of the selected proxy variables to calculate the vulnerability. In this study, it was shown that the degree of disaster and safety education should be considered as one of the proxy variables in non-structural measures when the vulnerability is calculated using an expert survey. As a result, the degree of the contribution on the climate change vulnerability can be different according to the education target and the characteristics of various systems. The results might be useful for developing a climate change adaptation policy in a specific area.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.165-178
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• 2014

National and local governmental adaptation plan for climate change will become mandatory in 2015. In order to establish the plan, assessment of vulnerability to climate change needs to be preceded. LCCGIS, a toolkit for vulnerability assessment, has been widely used by many local governments. However, assessment results by LCCGIS are not yet reliable because most of the vulnerability indices applied to LCCGIS　have the same value for almost all administrative units in Korea. In this study, proxy variables for hard-collectable indices were introduced, and the results were compared with those without any proxy variables. Vulnerability assessment could be conducted subjectively due to uncertainty. Thus, determination of objective indices, understanding the available data, and changes of indices in local conditions were organized. Results from this study are expected to make vulnerability assessment reliable and contribute to assessing vulnerability to climate change reflecting on local governmental characteristics.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.41 no.10
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• pp.969-982
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• 2008

As hydrological models have been progressively developed, they are recognized as appropriate tools to manage water resources. Especially, the need to evaluate the effects of landuse and climate change on hydrological phenomena has been increased, which requires powerful validation methods for the hydrological models to be employed. As measured streamflow data at many locations may not be available, or include significant errors in application of hydrological models, streamflow data simulated by models only might be used to conduct hydrological analysis. In many cases, reducing errors in model simulations requires a powerful model validation method. In this research, we demonstrated a validation methodology of SWAT model using observed flow in two basins with different physical characteristics. First, we selected two basins, Gap-cheon basin and Yongdam basin located in the Guem River Basin, showing different hydrological characteristics. Next, the methodology developed to estimate parameter values for the Gap-cheon basin was applied for estimating those for the Yongdam basin without calibration a priori, and sought for validation of the SWAT. Application result with SWAT for Yongdam basin showed $R_{eff}$ ranging from 0.49 to 0.85, and $R^{2}$ from 0.49 to 0.84. As well, comparison of predicted flow and measured flow in each subbasin showed reasonable agreement. Furthermore, the model reproduced the whole trends of measured total flow and low flow, though peak flows were rather underestimated. The results of this study suggest that SWAT can be applied for predicting effects of future climate and landuse changes on flow variability in river basins. However, additional studies are recommended to further verify the validity of the mixed method in other river basins.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 1997

Ring width chronologies of blue pine (pinus wallichiana) from two mesic sites, Kanasar(2, 400 m) and Gangotri(3, 000 m), in the western Himalayan region. India were developed to understand tree growth-climate relationship and its applicability in proxy climate studies. The resoponse function analyses of the two chronologies show that the site conditions play an important role in modulating the effect of climatic variables on tree growth. Winter temperature, prior to the growth year, has been found to play positive influence on blue pine growth at both sites. Summer temperature also has very similar response except for June and August. June temperature has negative influence at the lower in contrary to at the higher site. Low August temperature favors tree growth to precipitation has been found to vary which could be due to different precipitation regime at the two sites. Winter precipitation is important for tree growth at the higher, whereas summer at the lower sits. The present study suggests that the tree ring materials of blue pine from the temperate Himalayan regions could be used to develop chronologies for the reconstruction of seasonal climatic variables.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.89-102
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• 2023

Climate and environmental changes in the Arctic Ocean due to global warming have been linked to extreme climate change in mid-latitude regions, including the Korean Peninsula, requiring a better understanding of the Arctic climate system based on the paleo-analog. This review introduces three paleoenvironmental research cases using neodymium isotopes (¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd, ε_Nd) measured on two different fractions of marine sediments: silicate-bound 'detrital' and Fe-Mn oxide-dominated 'authigenic' fractions. In the first case, detrital ε_Nd in core HH17-1085-GC on the continental shelf off northern Svalbard was used for tracing changes in sediment provenance and associated glacier behavior over the last 16.3 ka. The second case showed the potential use of authigenic ε_Nd as a quasi-conservative water mass tracer. Three prominent ε_Nd peaks and troughs observed in core PS72/410-1 from the Mendeleev Ridge in the western Arctic Ocean over the past 76 ka suggested episodic meltwater discharge events during 51~46, 39~35 and 21~13 ka BP. The last case proposed the use of the difference between authigenic and detrital ε_Nd as a proxy for reconstructing glacier fluctuation. The idea is based on the assumption that enhanced glacial erosion during glacier advances can supply sufficient freshly-exposed rock substrate for incongruent weathering, potentially leading to greater isotopic decoupling between bedrock and dissolved weathering products as recorded in detrital and authigenic ε_Nd, respectively. Thus, it would be worthwhile to take advantage of sedimentary ε_Nd to improve our understanding of past environmental changes in polar regions.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.135-142
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• 2006

The extension of sunspot number series and auroral observations backward in time is of considerable interest for dynamo theory, solar activity and climate research. It was known that the Maunder minimum corresponded to a unusual cold so called little ice age in Europe and the appearance of sunspot had a close relation to the occurrence of aurora. Therefore we have examined ancient records of sunspots and aurorae with indirect solar proxies during this period and have studied for the features and peculiarities of solar activity with the relation of the climate variation.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2013

This study has purpose to minimize the impact of climate change of Siheung. Vulnerability assessment was carried out for establishing the Siheung Climate Change Master Plan. Climate change vulnerability assessment analyzed using climate exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity indicators. A proxy variable is selected from each indicator. Meteorological data uses the RCP scenarios provided by the Meteorological Administration, and this study assumes that the same trend will continues in the future. Siheung are vulnerable to heavy rains in the flooded roads and farmland. Also, it is necessary to be careful heat wave in summer. The size and scale of the damage depends on the city's ability to respond to the impacts of climate change. It is necessary to make a adaptation plan for climate change impact assessment and vulnerability analysis. This study will be used to make Siheung Climate Change Master Plan and to determine the priority of the policy as guideline. It is expected that this study is helpful to pursue climate change vulnerability assessment of other local governments.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.66 no.2
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• pp.35-52
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• 2024

This study conducted an assessment of potential impacts on the drought in agricultural reservoirs using the recently proposed SSP (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways) scenarios by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). This study assesses the potential impact of climate change on agricultural water resources and infrastructure vulnerability within Gyeongsangnam-do, focusing on 15 agricultural reservoirs. The assessment was based on the KRC (Korea Rural Community Corporation) 1^st vulnerability assessment methodology using RCP scenarios for 2021. However, there are limitations due to the necessity for climate impact assessments based on the latest climate information and the uncertainties associated with using a single scenario from national standard scenarios. Therefore, we applied the 13 GCM (General Circulation Model) outputs based on the newly introduced SSP scenarios. Furthermore, due to difficulties in data acquisiton, we reassessed potential impacts by redistributing weights for proxy variables. As a main result, with lower future potential impacts observed in areas with higher precipitation along the southern coast. Overall, the potential impacts increased for all reservoirs as we moved into the future, maintaining their relative rankings, yet showing no significant variability in the far future. Although the overall pattern of potential impacts aligns with previous evaluations, reevaluation under similar conditions with different spatial resolutions emphasizes the critical role of meteorological data spatial resolution in assessments. The results of this study are expected to improve the credibility and accuracy formulation of vulnerability employing more scientific predictions.