Abstract
In order to understand the relation between the distribution of sea surface temperature and heavy snowfall over western coast of the Korean peninsula, several numerical assessments were carried out. Numerical model used in this study is WRF, and sea surface temperature data were FNL(National Center for Environment Prediction-Final operational global analysis), RTG(Real Time Global analysis), and OSTIA(Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis). There were produced on the basis of remote sensing data, such as a variety of satellite and in situ observation. The analysis focused on the heavy snowfall over Honam districts for 2 days from 29 December 2010. In comparison with RTG and OSTIA SST data, sensible and latent heat fluexes estimated by numerical simulation with FNL data were higher than those with RTG and OSTIA SST data, due to higher sea surface temperature of FNL. General distribution of RTG and OSTIA SST showed similar, however, fine spatial differences appear in near western coast of the peninsula. Estimated snow fall amount with OSTIA SST was occurred far from the western coast because of higher SST over sea far from coast than that near coast. On the other hand, snowfall amount near coast is larger than that over distance sea in simulation with RTG SST. The difference of snowfall amount between numerical assessment with RTG and OSTIA is induced from the fine difference of SST spatial distributions over the Yellow sea. So, the prediction accuracy of snowfall amount is strongly associated with the SST distribution not only over near coast but also over far from the western coast of the Korean peninsula.
