• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 2009

Accurate solar radiation data are critical to evaluate major physiological responses of plants. For most upland crops and orchard plants growing in complex terrain, however, it is not easy for farmers or agronomists to access solar irradiance data. Here we suggest a simple method using a sun-slope geometry based topographical coefficient to estimate daily solar irradiance on any sloping surfaces from global solar radiation measured at a nearby weather station. An hourly solar irradiance ratio ($W_i$) between sloping and horizontal surface is defined as multiplication of the relative solar intensity($k_i$) and the slope irradiance ratio($r_i$) at an hourly interval. The $k_i$ is the ratio of hourly solar radiation to the 24 hour cumulative radiation on a horizontal surface under clear sky conditions. The $r_i$ is the ratio of clear sky radiation on a given slope to that on a horizontal reference. Daily coefficient for slope correction is simply the sum of $W_i$ on each date. We calculated daily solar irradiance at 8 side slope locations circumventing a cone-shaped parasitic volcano(c.a., 570m diameter for the bottom circle and 90m bottom-to-top height) by multiplying these coefficients to the global solar radiation measured horizontally. Comparison with the measured slope irradiance from April 2007 to March 2008 resulted in the root mean square error(RMSE) of $1.61MJ\;m^{-2}$ for the whole period but the RMSE for April to October(i.e., major cropping season in Korea) was much lower and satisfied the 5% error tolerance for radiation measurement. The RMSE was smallest in October regardless of slope aspect, and the aspect dependent variation of RMSE was greatest in November. Annual variation in RMSE was greatest on north and south facing slopes, followed by southwest, southeast, and northwest slopes in decreasing order. Once the coefficients are prepared, global solar radiation data from nearby stations can be easily converted to the solar irradiance map at landscape scales with the operational reliability in cropping season.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.224-236
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• 2002

A long-term growth simulation was performed at 496 land units in the western coastal plains (WCP) of North Korea to test the potential adaptability of each land unit for growing South Korean rice cultivars. The land units for rice cultivation (CZU), each of them represented by a geographically referenced 5 by 5 km grid tell, were identified by analyzing satellite remote sensing data. Surfaces of monthly climatic normals for daily maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation number of rain days and solar radiation were generated at a 1 by 1 km interval by spatial statistical methods using observed data at 51 synoptic weather stations in North and South Korea during 1981-2000. Grid cells felling within a same CZU and, at the same time, corresponding to the satellite data- identified rice growing pixels were extracted and aggregated to make a spatially explicit climatic normals relevant to the rice growing area of the CZU. Daily weather dataset for 30 years was randomly generated from the monthly climatic normals of each CZU. Growth and development parameters of CERES-rice model suitable for 11 major South Korean cultivars were derived from long-term field observations. Eight treatments comprised of 2 transplanting dates $\times$ 2 cropping systems $\times$ 2 irrigation methods were assigned to each cultivar. Each treatment was simulated with the randomly generated 30 years' daily weather data (from planting to physiological maturity) for 496 land units in WCP to simulate the growth and yield responses to the interannual climate variation. The same model was run with the input data from the 3 major crop experiment stations in South Korea to obtain a 30 year normal performance of each cultivar, which was used as a "reference" for comparison. Results were analyzed with respect to spatial and temporal variation in yield and maturity, and used to evaluate the suitability of each land unit for growing a specific South Korean cultivar. The results may be utilized as decision aids for agrotechnology transfer to North Korea, for example, germplasm evaluation, resource allocation and crop calendar preparation.