• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.32 no.6
• /
• pp.617-625
• /
• 1999

Global warming has begun since the industrial revolution and it is getting worse recently. Even though the increase of greenhouse gases such as $CO_2$ is thought to be the main cause for global warming, its impact on global climate has not been revealed clearly in rather quantitative manners. However, researches using General Circulation Models(GCMs) has shown the accumulation of greenhouse gases increases the global mean temperature, which in turn impacts on the global water circulation pattern. This changes in global water circulation pattern result in abnormal and more frequent meteorological events such as severe floods and droughts, generally more severe than the normal ones, which are now common around the world and is referred as a indirect proof of global warming. Korean peninsula also cannot be an exception and have had several extremes recently. The main objective of this research is to analyze the impact of global warming on the change of flood and drought frequency. Based on the assumption that now is a point in a continuously changing climate due to global warming, we analyzed the observed daily rainfall data to find out how the increase of annual rainfall amount affects the distribution of daily rainfall. Obviously, the more the annual rainfall depth, the more frequency of much daily rainfall, and vice versa. However, the analysis of the 17 points data of Keum river basin in Korea shows that especially the number of days of under 10mm or over 50mm daily rainfall depth is highly correlated with the amount of annual rainfall depth, not the number of dry days with their correlation coefficients quite high around 0.8 to 0.9.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.32 no.6
• /
• pp.627-636
• /
• 1999

In 60 years when the double $CO_2$concentration is anticipated the average annual rainfall depth is expected to be increased by 5 10% due to global warming. However, in the water resources area the frequency change of meteorological extremes such as droughts and floods attracts more interests than the increase of annual rainfall amount. Even though recent frequent occurrences of this kind of meteorological extremes are assumed as an indirect proof of global warming, the prediction of its overall tendency has not yet been made. Thus, in this research we propose a possible methodology to be used for its prediction. The methodology proposed is based on the frequency distribution of daily rainfall be Todorovie and Woolhiser(1975), and Katz(1977), where the input parameters are modified to consider the change of monthly or annual rainfall depth and, thus, to result in the change of frequency distribution. We adopt two values(10mm, 50mm) as thresholds and investigate the change of occurrence probability due to the change monthly and annual rainfall depth. these changes do not directly indicate the changes of occurrence probability of floods and droughts, but it may still be a very useful information for their prediction. Finally, the changes of occurrence probability were found to be greater when considering the monthly rainfall rather than the annual rainfall, and those in rainy season than those in dry season.