• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.29-39
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• 2014

This study examines the future variability of surface wind speed and solar radiation based on climate change scenario over the Korean Peninsula. Climate change scenarios used in this study are RCP 4.5 and 8.5 with a 12.5 km horizontal resolution. Climate change scenario RCP 4.5 and 8.5 reproduce the general features of wind speed over the Korean Peninsula, such as strong wind speed during spring and winter and weak wind speed during summer. When compared with the values of wind speed and solar radiation of the future, they are expected to decrease current wind and solar resource map. Comparing the resource maps using RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, wind speed and solar radiation decrease with increasing greenhouse gas concentration. Meteorological resource maps of future wind and solar radiation should be improved with high resolution for the industrial application.

• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.345-358
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• 2017

The decadal change in rainfall for Changma period over the South Korea in early-2000s is detected in this study. The Changma rainfall in P1 (1992~2002) decade is remarkably less than in P2 (2003~2013) decade. The much rainfall in P2 decade is associated with the increase of rainy day frequency during Changma period, including the frequent occurrences of rainy day with a intensity of 30 mm/day or more in P2 decade. This decadal change in the Changma rainfall is due to the decadal change of atmospheric circulation around the Korean Peninsula which affects the intensity and location of Changma rainfall. During P2 decade, the anomalous anti-cyclone over the south of the Korean Peninsula, which represents the expansion of the North Pacific high with warm and wet air mass toward East Asia, is stronger than in P1 decade. In addition, the upper level zonal wind and meridional gradient of low-level equivalent potential temperature in P2 decade is relatively strengthened over the northern part of the Korean Peninsula than in P1 decade, which corresponds with the intensification of meridional gradient between air mass related to the East Asian summer monsoon nearby the Korean Peninsula in P2 decade. The enhanced meridional gradient of atir mass during P2 decade is favorable condition for the intensification of Changma rainfall band and more Changma rainfall. The atmospheric conditions related to enhanced Changma rainfall during P2 decade is likely to be influenced by the teleconnection linked to the suppressed convection anomaly over the southern part of China and South China Sea in P2 decade.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.269-281
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• 2011

In this review, numerical model results from global and regional climate models are introduced to regional detailed climate changes over East Asia and Korea. In particular, regional climate change scenarios in this region, which are created by several research groups in Korea based on Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) of IPCC 4th assessment report are introduced and characteristics of the scenarios are investigated. Despite slight differences in intensity, all scenarios reveal prominent warming over the Korean peninsula in future climate. Changes in precipitation amount vary with given scenarios and periods, but the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation generally tend to increase in all scenarios. South Korea except for mountainous regions is expected to change into subtropical climate in future, which accompanies distinct changes in ecosystems and seasons.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.249-260
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• 2015

The changes in thermodynamic and dynamic aspects on near (2025~2049) and long-term (2075~2099) future climate changes between the historical run (1979~2005) and the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 run with 20 coupled models which employed in the phase five of Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5) over East Asia (EA) and the Korean Peninsula are investigated as an extended study for Moon et al. (2014) study noted that the 20 models' multi-model ensemble (MME) and best five models' multi-model ensemble (B5MME) have a different increasing trend of precipitation during the boreal winter and summer, in spite of a similar increasing trend of surface air temperature, especially over the Korean Peninsula. Comparing the MME and B5MME, the dynamic factor (the convergence of mean moisture by anomalous wind) and the thermodynamic factor (the convergence of anomalous moisture by mean wind) in terms of moisture flux convergence are analyzed. As a result, the dynamic factor causes the lower increasing trend of precipitation in B5MME than the MME during the boreal winter and summer over EA. However, over the Korean Peninsula, the dynamic factor causes the lower increasing trend of precipitation in B5MME than the MME during the boreal winter, whereas the thermodynamic factor causes the higher increasing trend of precipitation in B5MME than the MME during the boreal summer. Therefore, it can be noted that the difference between MME and B5MME on the change in precipitation is affected by dynamic (thermodynamic) factor during the boreal winter (summer) over the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.237-251
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• 2011

This study presents a review on the recent climate change over the Korean peninsula, which has experienced a significant change due to the human-induced global warming more strongly than other regions. The recent measurement of carbon dioxide concentrations over the Korean peninsula shows a faster rise than the global average, and the increasing trend in surface temperature over this region is much larger than the global mean trend. Recent observational studies reporting the weakened cold extremes and intensified warm extremes over the region support consistently the increase of mean temperature. Surface vegetation greenness in spring has also progressed relatively more quickly. Summer precipitation over the Korean peninsula has increased by about 15% since 1990 compared to the previous period. This was mainly due to an increase in August. On the other hand, a slight decrease in the precipitation (about 5%) during Changma period (rainy season of the East Asian summer monsoon), was observed. The heavy rainfall amounts exhibit an increasing trend particularly since the late 1970s, and a consecutive dry-day has also increased primarily over the southern area. This indicates that the duration of precipitation events has shortened, while their intensity became stronger. During the past decades, there have been more stronger typhoons affecting the Korean peninsula with landing more preferentially over the southeastern area. Meanwhile, the urbanization effect is likely to contribute to the rapid warming, explaining about 28% of total temperature increase during the past 55 years. The impact of El Nino on seasonal climate over the Korean peninsula has been well established - winter [summer] temperatures was generally higher [lower] than normal, and summer rainfall tends to increase during El-Nino years. It is suggested that more frequent occurrence of the 'central-Pacific El-Nino' during recent decades may have induced warmer summer and fall over the Korean peninsula. In short, detection and attribution studies provided fundamental information that needed to construct more reliable projections of future climate changes, and therefore more comprehensive researches are required for better understanding of past climate variations.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.249-260
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• 2012

Monitoring of climate change and atmospheric environment by satellite measurements has been increased in recent years. In this study, nitrogen dioxide ($NO_2$) measurements from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) were compared with surface measurements over the Korean peninsula. $NO_2$ from OMI measurements showed high values and also showed seasonal variations such as high concentration in winter and low in summer over metropolitan areas while $NO_2$ concentration at national background station was low and did not clearly show seasonal variations. Surface measurements showed similar temporal and spatial variations to those of satellite measurement. The comparison between satellite measurements and surface measurements showed that the correlation between them was higher in urban area (r=0.64 at Seoul and r=0.63 at Daegu) than in national background stations (r=0.37 at Jeju) because the concentration in urban area was relatively high so that the variation of $NO_2$ concentration could be detected better than at national background stations by satellite. Satellite can effectively measure the emission and transport of pollutants with no limitations in spatial coverage.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.615-631
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• 2012

This study provides an evaluation for capability of Integrated Climate and Air quality Modeling System (ICAMS) on future regional scale climate projection. Temperature and precipitation are compared between ground-level observation data and results of regional models (MM5) for the past 30 years over the Korean peninsula. The ICAMS successfully simulates the local-scale spatial/seasonal variation of the temperature and precipitation. The probability distribution of simulated daily mean and minimum temperature agree well with the observed patterns and trends, although mean temperature shows a little cold bias about $1^{\circ}C$ compared to observations. It seems that a systematic cold bias is mostly due to an underestimation of maximum temperature. In the case of precipitation, the rainfall in winter and light rainfall are remarkably simulated well, but summer precipitation is underestimated in the heavy rainfall phenomena of exceeding 20 mm/day. The ICAMS shows a tendency to overestimate the number of washout days about 7%. Those results of this study indicate that the performance of ICAMS is reasonable regarding to air quality predication over the Korean peninsula.

• Atmosphere
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.107-125
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• 2009

Statistical downscaled surface temperature datasets by employing the cyclostationary empirical orthogonal function (CSEOF) analysis and multiple linear regression method are examined. For evaluating the efficiency of this statistical downscaling method, monthly surface temperature of the ECMWF has been downscaled into monthly temperature having a fine spatial scale of ~20km over the Korean peninsula for the 1973-2000 period. Monthly surface temperature of the ECHOG has also been downscaled into the same spatial scale data for the same period. Comparisons of temperatures between two datasets over the Korean peninsula show that annual mean temperature of the ECMWF is about $2^{\circ}C$ higher than that of the ECHOG. After applying to the statistical downscaling method, the difference of two annual mean temperatures reduces less than $1^{\circ}C$ and their spatial patterns become even close to each other. Future downscaled data shows that annual temperatures in the A1B scenario will increase by $3.5^{\circ}C$ by the late 21st century. The downscaled data are influenced by the ECHOG as well as observation data which includes effects of complicated topography and the heat island.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.891-905
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• 2011

Climate vulnerability index is usually defined as a function of the climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, which requires adequate selection of proxy variables of each variable. We selected and used 9 proxy variables related to climate exposure in the literature, and diagnosed the adequacy of them for application in Korean peninsula. The selected proxy variables are: four variables from temperature, three from precipitation, one from wind speed, and one from relative humidity. We collected climate data over both previous year (1981~2010) and future climate scenario (A1B scenario of IPCC SERES) for 2020, 2050, and 2100. We introduced the spatial and temporal diagnostic statistical parameters, and evaluated both spatial and time variabilities in the relative scale. Of 9 proxy variables, effective humidity indicated the most sensitive to climate change temporally with the biggest spatial variability, implying a good proxy variable in diagnostics of climate change vulnerability in Korea. The second most sensitive variable is the frequency of strong wind speed with a decreasing trend, suggesting that it should be used carefully or may not be of broad utility as a proxy variable in Korea. The A1B scenario of future climate in 2020, 2050 and 2100 matches well with the extension of linear trend of observed variables during 1981~2010, indicating that, except for strong wind speed, the selected proxy variables can be effectively used in calculating the vulnerability index for both past and future climate over Korea. Other local variabilities for the past and future climate in association with climate exposure variables are also discussed here.

• Atmosphere
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.347-356
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• 2013

The climate projection with a high spatial resolution is required for the studies on regional climate changes. The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) has provided downscaled RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) scenarios over Korea with 1 km spatial resolution. If there are additional climate projections produced by dynamically downscale, the quality of impacts and vulnerability assessments of Korea would be improved with uncertainty information. This technical note intends to instruct the methods to downscale the climate projections dynamically from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. In particular, here we focus on the instruction to utilize CAM2WRF, a sub-program to link output of CESM to initial and boundary condition of WRF at Linux platform. We also provide the example of the dynamically downscaled results over Korean Peninsula with 50 km spatial resolution for August, 2020. This instruction can be helpful to utilize global scale climate scenarios for studying regional climate change over Korean peninsula with further validation and uncertainty/bias analysis.