• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.229-229
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• 2015

Downscaling is a fundamental procedure in the assessment of the future climate change impact at regional and watershed scales. Hence, it is important to investigate the spatial variability of the climate conditions that are constructed by various downscaling methods in order to assess whether each method can model the climate conditions at various spatial scales properly. This study introduces a fundamental research from Jang and Kavvas(2015) that precipitation variability from a popular statistical downscaling method (BCSD) and a dynamical downscaling method (MM5) that is based on the NCAR/NCEP reanalysis data for a historical period and on the CCSM3 GCM A1B emission scenario simulations for a projection period, is investigated by means of some spatial characteristics: a) the normalized standard deviation (NSD), and b) the precipitation change over Northern California region. From the results of this study it is found that the BCSD method has limitations in projecting future precipitation values since the BCSD-projected precipitation, being based on the interpolated change factors from GCM projected precipitation, does not consider the interactions between GCM outputs and local geomorphological characteristics such as orographic effects and land use/cover patterns. As such, it is not clear whether the popular BCSD method is suitable for the assessment of the impact of future climate change at regional, watershed and local scales as the future climate will evolve in time and space as a nonlinear system with land-atmosphere feedbacks. However, it is noted that in this study only the BCSD procedure for the statistical downscaling method has been investigated, and the results by other statistical downscaling methods might be different.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.377-390
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• 2020

Not only emissions, but also atmospheric circulation is a key factor that affects local particulate matters (PM) concentrations in Korea through ventilation effects and transboundary transports. As part of the atmospheric circulation, air stagnation especially adversely affects local air quality due to weak ventilation. This study investigates the large-scale circulation related to air stagnation over Korea during winter and projects the climate change impacts on atmospheric patterns, using observed PM data, reanalysis and regional climate projections from HadGEM3-RA with Modified Korea Particulate matter Index. Results show that the stagnation affects the PM concentration, accompanied by pressure ridge at upper troposphere and weaken zonal pressure gradient at lower troposphere. Downscaling using HadGEM3-RA is found to yield Added-Value in the simulated low tropospheric winds. For projection of future stagnation, SSP5-8.5 and SSP1-2.6 (high and low emission) scenarios are used here. It has been found that the stagnation condition occurs more frequently by 11% under SSP5-8.5 and by 5% under SSP1-2.6 than in present-day climate and is most affected by changes in surface wind speed. The increase in the stagnation conditions is related to anticyclonic circulation anomaly at upper troposphere and weaken meridional pressure gradient at lower troposphere. Considering that the present East Asian winter monsoon is mainly affected by change in zonal pressure gradient, it is worth paying attention to this change in the meridional gradient. Our results suggest that future warming condition increase the frequency of air stagnation over Korea during winter with response of atmospheric circulation and its nonlinearity.

• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.607-623
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• 2021

This study presents projections of future extreme climate over the Korean Peninsula (KP), using bias-corrected data from multiple regional climate model (RCM) simulations in CORDEX-EA Phase 2 project. In order to confirm difference according to degree of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, high GHG path of SSP5-8.5 and low GHG path of SSP1-2.6 scenario are used. Under SSP5-8.5 scenario, mean temperature and precipitation over KP are projected to increase by 6.38℃ and 20.56%, respectively, in 2081~2100 years compared to 1995~2014 years. Projected changes in extreme climate suggest that intensity indices of extreme temperatures would increase by 6.41℃ to 8.18℃ and precipitation by 24.75% to 33.74%, being bigger increase than their mean values. Both of frequency indices of the extreme climate and consecutive indices of extreme precipitation are also projected to increase. But the projected changes in extreme indices vary regionally. Under SSP1-2.6 scenario, the extreme climate indices would increase less than SSP5-8.5 scenario. In other words, temperature (precipitation) intensity indices would increase 2.63℃ to 3.12℃ (14.09% to 16.07%). And there is expected to be relationship between mean precipitation and warming, which mean precipitation would increase as warming with bigger relationship in northern KP (4.08% ℃^-1) than southern KP (3.53% ℃^-1) under SSP5-8.5 scenario. The projected relationship, however, is not significant for extreme precipitation. It seems because of complex characteristics of extreme precipitation from summer monsoon and typhoon over KP.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.693-706
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• 2015

A shift of first fowering date (FFD) of spring blossoms (cherry, peach and pear) over the northest Asia under global warming is investiaged using dynamically downscaled daily temperature data with 12.5 km resolution. For the study, we obatained gridded daily data with Historical (1981~2010), and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) (2021~2100) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios which were produced by WRFv3.4 in conjunction with HadGEM2-AO. A change on FFDs in 21st century is estimated by applying daily outputs of WRFv3.4 to DTS phonological model. Prior to projection on future climate, the performances of both WRFv3.4 and DTS models are evaluated using spatial distribution of climatology and SCR diagram (Normalized standard deviation-Pattern correlation coefficient-Root mean square difference). According to the result, WRFv3.4 and DTS models well simulated a feature of the terrain following characteristics and a general pattern of observation with a marigin of $1.4^{\circ}C$ and 5~6 days. The analysis reveals a projected advance in FFDs of cherry, peach and pear over the northeast Asia by 2100 of 15.4 days (9.4 days). 16.9 days (10.4 days) and 15.2 days (9.5 days), respectively, compared to the Historical simulation due to a increasing early spring (Februrary to April) temperature of about $4.9^{\circ}C$ ($2.9^{\circ}C$) under the RCP 8.5 (RCP 4.5) scenarios. This indicates that the current flowering of the cherry, peach and pear over analysis area in middle or end of April is expected to start blooming in early or middle of April, at the end of this century. The present study shows the dynamically downscaled daily data with high-resolution is helpeful in offering various useful information to end-users as well as in understanding regional climate change.

• Atmosphere
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.55-68
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• 2007

Future climate changes over East Asia are projected by anthropogenic forcing of greenhouse gases and aerosols using ECHO-G/S (ECHAM4/HOPE-G). Climate simulation in the 21st century is conducted with three standard SRES scenarios (A1B, B1, and A2) and the model performance is assessed by the 20th Century (20C3M) experiment. From the present climate simulation (20C3M), the model reproduced reliable climate state in the most fields, however, cold bias in temperature and dry bias of summer in precipitation occurred. The intercomparison among models using Taylor diagram indicates that ECHO-G/S exhibits smaller mean bias and higher pattern correlation than other nine AOGCMs. Based on SRES scenarios, East Asia will experience warmer and wetter climate in the coming 21st century. Changes of geographical patterns from the present to the future are considerably similar through all the scenarios except for the magnitude difference. The temperature in winter and precipitation in summer show remarkable increase. In spite of the large uncertainty in simulating precipitation by regional scale, we found that the summer (winter) precipitation at eastern coast (north of $40^{\circ}N$) of East Asia has significantly increased. In the 21st century, the warming over the continents of East Asia showed much more increase than that over the ocean. Hence, more enhanced (weakened) land-sea thermal contrast over East Asia in summer (winter) will cause strong (weak) monsoon. In summer, the low pressure located in East Asia becomes deeper and the moisture from the south or southeast is transported more into the land. These result in increasing precipitation amount over East Asia, especially at the coastal region. In winter, the increase (decrease) of precipitation is accompanied by strengthening (weakening) of baroclinicity over the land (sea) of East Asia.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.208-225
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• 2012

The spatial characteristics of changes in extreme temperature indices for 2070-2099 relative to 1971-2000 in the Republic of Korea were investigated using daily maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperature data from a regional climate model (HadGEM3-RA) based on the IPCC RCP4.5/8.5 at 12.5km grid spacing and observations. Six temperature-based indices were selected to consider the frequency and intensity of extreme temperature events. For validation during the reference period (1971-2000), the simulated Tmax and Tmin distributions reasonably reproduce annual and seasonal characteristics not only for the relative probability but also the variation range. In the future (2070-2099), the occurrence of summer days (SD) and tropical nights (TR) is projected to be more frequent in the entire region while the occurrence of ice days (ID) and frost days (FD) is likely to decrease. The increase of averaged Tmax above 95th percentile (TX95) and Tmin below 5th percentile (TN5) is also projected. These changes are more pronounced under RCP8.5 scenario than RCP4.5. The changes in extreme temperature indices except for FD show significant correlations with altitude, and the changes in ID, TR, and TN5 also show significant correlations with latitude. The mountainous regions are projected to be more influenced by an increase of low extreme temperature than low altitude while the southern coast is likely to be more influenced by an increase of tropical nights.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2016

Even if an external forcing that will drive a climate change is given uniformly over the globe, the corresponding climate change and the feedbacks by the climate system differ by region. Thus the detection of global warming signal has been made on a regional scale as well as on a global average against the internal variabilities and other noises involved in the climate change. The purpose of this study is to estimate a timing of unprecedented climate due to global warming and to analyze the regional differences in the estimated results. For this purpose, unlike previous studies that used climate simulation data, we used an observational dataset to estimate a magnitude of internal variability and a future temperature change. We calculated a linear trend in surface temperature using a historical temperature record from 1880 to 2014 and a magnitude of internal variability as the largest temperature displacement from the linear trend. A timing of unprecedented climate was defined as the first year when a predicted minimum temperature exceeds the maximum temperature record in a historical data and remains as such since then. Presumed that the linear trend and the maximum displacement will be maintained in the future, an unprecedented climate over the land would come within 200 years from now in the western area of Africa, the low latitudes including India and the southern part of Arabian Peninsula in Eurasia, the high latitudes including Greenland and the mid-western part of Canada in North America, the low latitudes including Amazon in South America, the areas surrounding the Ross Sea in Antarctica, and parts of East Asia including Korean Peninsula. On the other hand, an unprecedented climate would come later after 400 years in the high latitudes of Eurasia including the northern Europe, the middle and southern parts of North America including the U.S.A. and Mexico. For the ocean, an unprecedented climate would come within 200 years over the Indian Ocean, the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic and the South Atlantic, parts of the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Ross Sea, and parts of the Arctic Sea. In the meantime, an unprecedented climate would come even after thousands of years over some other regions of ocean including the eastern tropical Pacific and the North Pacific middle latitudes where an internal variability is large. In summary, spatial pattern in timing of unprecedented climate are different for each continent. For the ocean, it is highly affected by large internal variability except for the high-latitude regions with a significant warming trend. As such, a timing of an unprecedented climate would not be uniform over the globe but considerably different by region. Our results suggest that it is necessary to consider an internal variability as well as a regional warming rate when planning a climate change mitigation and adaption policy.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.600-614
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• 2013

This study aims to examine spatially-detailed changes and projection of subtropical climate zones based on the modified K$\ddot{o}$ppen-Trewartha's climate classification and extreme temperature indices using $1km{\times}1km$ high resolution RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 climate change scenarios based on PRIDE model over the Republic of Korea. Subtropical climate zones currently located along the southern coastal region. Future subtropical climate zones would be pushed northwards expanding to the western and the eastern coastal regions as well as some metropolitan areas. For both scenarios, the frequency of cold-related extreme temperatures projects to be reduced while the frequency of hot-related ones projects to be increased. Especially, hot days with $33^{\circ}C$ or higher temperature projects to occur more than 30 days over the most of regions except for some mountain areas with high altitudes during the period of 2070~2100. This study might provide essential information to make climate change adaptation processes be enhanced.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.267-275
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• 2013

This study projected the future ocean wave climate changes based on global climate change scenario using the coupled climate model HadGEM2-AO according to the emission scenarios and using regional wave model. Annual mean significant wave height (SWH) is linked closely to annual mean wind speed during the forthcoming 21st Century. Because annual mean speed decreased in the western North Pacific, annual mean SWH is projected to decrease in the future. The annual mean SWH decreases for the last 30 years of the 21st century relative to the period 1971-2000 are 2~7% for RCP4.5 and 4~11% for RCP8.5, respectively. Also, extreme SWH and wind speed are projected to decrease in the future. In terms of seasonal mean, winter extreme SWH shows similar trend with annual extreme SWH; however, that of summer shows large increasing tendency compared with current climate in the western North Pacific. Therefore, typhoon intensity in the future might be more severe in the future climate.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.1-12
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• 2015

The study aimed to project inflows and demmands for the agricultural reservoir watersheds in South Korea considering a variety of regional characteristics and the uncertainty of future climate information. The study bias-corrected and spatially downscaled retrospective daily Global Climate Model (GCM) outputs under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 emission scenarios using non-parametric quantile mapping method to force Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. Using the historical simulation, the skills of un-calibrated SWAT model (without calibration process) was evaluated for 5 reservoir watersheds (selected as well-monitored representatives). The study then, evaluated the performance of 9 GCMs in reproducing historical upstream inflow and irrigation demand at the five representative reservoirs. Finally future inflows and demands for 58 watersheds were projected using 9 GCMs projections under the two RCP scenarios. We demonstrated that (1) un-calibrated SWAT model is likely applicable to agricultural watershed, (2) the uncertainty of future climate information from different GCMs is significant, (3) multi-model ensemble (MME) shows comparatively resonable skills in reproducing water balances over the study area. The results of projection under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenario generally showed the increase of inflow by 9.4% and 10.8% and demand by 1.4% and 1.7%, respectively. More importantly, the results for different seasons and reservoirs varied considerably in the impacts of climate change.