Abstract
Impacts of global warming have been identified in many areas including natural ecosystem. A good number of studies based on climate models forecasting future climate have been conducted in many countries worldwide. Due to its global coverage, GCM, which is a most frequently used climate model, has limits to apply to Korea with such a narrower and complicated terrain. Therefore, it is necessary to perform a study impact assessment of climate changes with a climate model fully reflecting characteristics of Korean climate. In this respect, this study was designed to compare and analyze the GCM and RCM in order to determine a suitable climate model for Korea. In this study, spatial scope was Korea for 10 years from 1981 to 1990. As a research method, current climate was estimated on the basis of the data obtained from observation at the GHCN. Future climate was forecast using 4 GCMs furnished by the IPCC among SRES A2 Scenario as well as the RCM received from the NIES of Japan. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted for the purpose of comparing data obtained from observation with GCM and RCM. As a result of this study, average annual temperature of Korea between 1981 and 1990 was found to be around $12.03^{\circ}C$, with average daily rainfall being 2.72mm. Under the GCM, average annual temperature was between 10.22 and $16.86^{\circ}C$, with average daily rainfall between 2.13 and 3.35mm. Average annual temperature in the RCM was identified $12.56^{\circ}C$, with average daily rainfall of 5.01mm. In the comparison of the data obtained from observation with GCM and RCM, RCMs of both temperature and rainfall were found to well reflect characteristics of Korea's climate. This study is important mainly in that as a preliminary study to examine impact of climate changes such as global warming it chose appropriate climate model for our country. These results of the study showed that future climate produced under similar conditions with actual ones may be applied for various areas in many ways.
