• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.233-244
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• 1994

The phenomenon of yellow sand (dust clouds) occurred in Korea during the spring of 1993 and 1994 is studied in detail. In total 6 cases including 15 days of yellow sand were observed in 1993 and the annual number of these events was found to increased. Examinations in this study include meteorological charts satellite imagery, pilot reports (PIREP) of Korea Air Force, and air concentrations of total suspended particulates(TSP). We present on estimation of total atmospheric loadings based on the observation and theory. According to the PIREP, in general the dust clouds travelled in the lower troposphere up to the level 5km. The visibility within the clouds was in the range of 3-8km The area covered by yellow sand in an event exceeded 0.4 M $\textrm{km}^2$ . According to trajectory analyses, dust clouds invaded Korea in April and May 1993 were landed in the sink area after 2~4 days travelling for 2,000~3,000km from a source region. Estimates of total atmospheric loadings of a dust cloud for April 23~24 in 1993 were 1.5 M ton. In addition, 7 dust storms were also reported in synoptic observations in NW China and Mongolia during the spring in 1994. The yellow sand was not reported with meteorological observations in Korea, however pilots reported significant dust clouds over the Yellow Sea on 8 and 13 April and 20 May 1994.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.30 no.11
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• pp.925-936
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• 2021

The study was aimed to investigate the correlation between tidal effects and fog occurrence in Incheon and Mokpo, which are located in the middle and southern coasts of the West Sea of Korea, respectively. The investigation used meteorological data obtained from the automated synoptic observing systems and automatic weather stations and ocean data from tide stations from 2010 to 2019. Fog occurrence frequency was highest at high tide (Incheon, 41%; Mokpo, 45%). During fog event days at high tide, the dew-point depression was low (Incheon, 0.5℃; Mokpo, 0.4℃) and the relative humidity was high (Incheon, 97%; Mokpo, 98%). The wind speed was 2.4 m/s in Incheon and 2.0 m/s in Mokpo, and the main wind directions were west-southwesterly from Incheon and southwesterly from Mokpo. In the fog case study, tidal flats were covered with water before and after the fog started. During the fog period, both stations experienced negative air-sea temperature differences, low dew-point depression, and high relative humidity were maintained, with weak winds forming from the tidal flats to the shore.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2023

The latest revision of AS/NZS 1170.2 incorporates some new research and knowledge on strong winds, climate change, and shape factors for new structures of interest such as solar panels. Unlike most other jurisdictions, Australia and New Zealand covers a vast area of land, a latitude range from 11° to 47°S climatic zones from tropical to cold temperate, and virtually every type of extreme wind event. The latter includes gales from synoptic-scale depressions, severe convectively-driven downdrafts from thunderstorms, tropical cyclones, downslope winds, and tornadoes. All except tornadoes are now covered within AS/NZS 1170.2. The paper describes the main features of the 2021 edition with emphasis on the new content, including the changes in the regional boundaries, regional wind speeds, terrain-height, topographic and direction multipliers. A new 'climate change multiplier' has been included, and the gust and turbulence profiles for over-water winds have been revised. Amongst the changes to the provisions for shape factors, values are provided for ground-mounted solar panels, and new data are provided for curved roofs. New methods have been given for dynamic response factors for poles and masts, and advice given for acceleration calculations for high-rise buildings and other dynamically wind-sensitive structures.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.297-310
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• 2007

Recent evidence has demonstrated that the pollutant recirculation can play an important role in leading to high ozone $(O_3)$ concentrations. In this study, the MM5-CAMx air quality modeling system was applied to simulate the pollutant recirculation and identify the transport of pollution during the high $O_3$ event (the maximum $O_3$ of 195 ppb) observed in the Greater Seoul Area (GSA) on $1{\sim}4$ June in 2004. The results showed a weak northeasterly synoptic wind during the night and early morning moved the air parcels containing the locally emitted urban pollution to the coast, which contributed to enhance $O_3$ formation in the southwest part of the GSA. As the sea breeze developed and started to penetrate inland in the late afternoon, the rapid build-up of $O_3$ concentration was found in the southwest coastal area due to the recirculation of the polluted air loaded with high level $O_3$. The simulated backward trajectories and observations at coastal sites confirmed the recirculation of pollutant with the late sea breeze is the dominant factor affecting the occurrence of high $O_3$ concentrations in the southwestern GSA.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.763-791
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• 2015

"Wind and Ports" is a European project that has been carried out since 2009 to handle wind forecast in port areas through an integrated system made up of an extensive in-situ wind monitoring network, the numerical simulation of wind fields, the statistical analysis of wind climate, and algorithms for medium-term (1-3 days) and short term (0.5-2 hours) wind forecasting. The in-situ wind monitoring network, currently made up of 22 ultrasonic anemometers, provides a unique opportunity for detecting high resolution thunderstorm records and studying their dominant characteristics relevant to wind engineering with special concern for wind actions on structures. In such a framework, the wind velocity of thunderstorms is firstly decomposed into the sum of a slowly-varying mean part plus a residual fluctuation dealt with as a non-stationary random process. The fluctuation, in turn, is expressed as the product of its slowly-varying standard deviation by a reduced turbulence component dealt with as a rapidly-varying stationary Gaussian random process with zero mean and unit standard deviation. The extraction of the mean part of the wind velocity is carried out through a moving average filter, and the effect of the moving average period on the statistical properties of the decomposed signals is evaluated. Among other aspects, special attention is given to the thunderstorm duration, the turbulence intensity, the power spectral density and the integral length scale. Some noteworthy wind velocity ratios that play a crucial role in the thunderstorm loading and response of structures are also analyzed.

• Atmosphere
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.209-219
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• 2012

Extreme heavy snowfall episodes have been investigated in case of accumulated snowfall amount larger than 50 cm during the past ten years, in order to understand the association of low-level stability with heavy snowfall in the Yeongdong region. In general, the selected 4 events have similar synoptic setting such as the Siberian High extended to East Sea along with the Low passing by the southern Korean Peninsula, eventually inducing easterly in the Yeongdong region. Specifically moist-adiabatically neutral layer has been observed during the heavy snowfall period, which was easily identified using vertical profiles of equivalent potential temperature observed at Sokcho, whereas convective unstable layer has been formed over the East sea due to relatively warm sea surface temperature (SST) about $8{\sim}10^{\circ}C$ and lower temperature around 1~2 km above the surface, obtained from RDAPS. Difference of equivalent potential temperature between 850 hPa and surface as well as difference between air and sea temperatures altogether gradually increased before the snowfall period. Instability-induced moisture supply to the atmosphere from the East sea, being cooled and saturated by the upper cold surge, would make low-level ice cloud, and eventually move inland by the easterly flow. Heavy snowfall will be enhanced in association with low-level convergence by surface friction and upslope wind against Taebaek mountains. This study emphasizes the importance of low level stability in the Yeongdong region using the radiosonde sounding and RDAPS data, which should quantitatively be examined through numerical model as well as heat and moisture supply from the ocean.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-102
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• 2020

Accurate load evaluation is essential in any performance-based design. Design wind speeds and associated wind loads are well defined for synoptic boundary layer winds but not for thunderstorms. The method presented in the current study represents a new approach to obtain design wind speeds associated with thunderstorms and their gust fronts using historical data and Monte Carlo simulations. The method consists of the following steps (i) developing a numerical model for thunderstorm downdrafts (i.e. downbursts) to account for storm translation and outflow dissipation, (ii) utilizing the model to characterize previous events and (iii) extrapolating the limited wind speed data to cover life-span of structures. The numerical model relies on a previously generated CFD wind field, which is validated using six documented thunderstorm events. The model suggests that 10 parameters are required to describe the characteristics of an event. The model is then utilized to analyze wind records obtained at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (KLBB) meteorological station to identify the thunderstorm parameters for this location, obtain their probability distributions, and utilized in the Monte Carlo simulation of thunderstorm gust front events for many thousands of years for the purpose of estimating design wind speeds. The analysis suggests a potential underestimation of design wind speeds when neglecting thunderstorm gust fronts, which is common practice in analyzing historical wind records. When compared to the design wind speed for a 700-year MRI in ASCE 7-10 and ASCE 7-16, the estimated wind speeds from the simulation were 10% and 11.5% higher, respectively.

• Atmosphere
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.273-286
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• 2010

The northeast part of China(hereafter Manchuria) is one of Asian dust source regions along with Gobi, Inner Mongolia and Loess Plateau. In this study, a geographical survey over the area was carried out to determine its soil characteristics in June 2009. It revealed that some parts of the area, especially near Keerchin desert, consist of alkali clay soil mixed up with sand. Manchuria, where is a vast cornfield, can be a potential source region of Asian dust from fall to following spring after harvesting. The frequency of Asian dust over the region from 1996 to 2009 was examined using 3-hourly GTS SYNOP data and it showed that the occurrence of Asian dust over the region is high in the springtime. It was also revealed that snow cover is the key parameter affecting on the frequency through the analysis of NCEP reanalysis data. To scrutinize the path and structure of Asian dust from Manchuria, the event on 3~4 April 2008 and 25 January 2010 were intensively investigated with regard to features of synoptic weather patterns, satellite imagery, airstream, naked eye-observations, concentrations of PM10, 2.5 and 1.0. For this case, the Asian dust from the area reached to Korea less than a day. However, the duration time of the dust in Korea was short (< 7 hours). The average of hourly PM10 reached up to $340{\mu}g/m^{3}$ at Baengnyeondo during the period. The high PM2.5 and PM1.0 concentrations were also observed at several sites in Korea, indicating that air pollutants could be transported along with the dust.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.99-99
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• 2011

A statistical study of coronal hole merging and splitting has been performed through Solar Cycle 23. The NOAA/SESC solar synoptic maps are examined to identify inarguably clear events of coronal hole merging and splitting. The numbers of merging events and splitting events are more or less comparable regardless of the phase in the solar cycle. The number of both events, however, definitely shows the phase dependence in the solar cycle. It apparently has a minimum at the solar minimum whereas its maximum is located in the declining phase of the sunspot activity, about a year after the second peak in Solar Cycle 23. There are more events of merging and splitting in the descending phase than in the ascending phase. Interestingly, no event is found at the local minimum between the two peaks of the sunspot activity. This trend can be compared with the variation of the average magnetic field strength and the radial field component in the solar wind through the solar cycle. In Ulysses observations, both of these quantities have a minimum at the solar minimum while their maximum is located in the descending phase, a while after the second peak of the sunspot activity. At the local minimum between the two peaks in the solar cycle, the field strength and the radial component both have a shallow local minimum or an inflection point. At the moment, the physical reason for these resembling tendencies is difficult to understand with existing theories. Seeing that merging and splitting of coronal holes are possible by passage of opposite polarity magnetic structures, we may suggest that the energizing activities in the solar surface such as motions of flux tubes are not exactly in phase with sunspot generation, but are more active some time after the sunspot maximum.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.25-43
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• 2018

The effects of hydro-meteorological and surface variables on the frequency of Asian dust events (FAE) were investigated using ground station and satellite-based data. Present weather codes 7, 8, and 9 derived from surface synoptic observations (SYNOP)were used for counting FAE. Surface wind speed (SWS), air temperature (Ta), relative humidity (RH), and precipitation were analyzed as hydro-meteorological variables for FAE. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), land surface temperature (LST), and snow cover fraction (SCF) were used to consider the effects of surface variables on FAE. The relationships between FAE and hydro-meteorological variables were analyzed using Z-score and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. Although all variables expressed the change of FAE, the degrees of expression were different. SWS, LST, and Ta (indices applicable when Z-score was < 0) explained about 63.01, 58.00, and 56.17% of the FAE,respectively. For NDVI, precipitation, and RH, Asian dust events occurred with a frequency of about 55.38, 67.37, and 62.87% when the Z-scores were > 0. EOF analysis for the FAE showed the seasonal cycle, change pattern, and surface influences related to dryness condition for the FAE. The intensity of SWS was the main cause for change of FAE, but surface variables such as LST, SCF, and NDVI also were expressed because wet surface conditions suppress FAE. These results demonstrate that not only SWS and precipitation, but also surface variables, are important and useful precursors for monitoring Asian dust events.