• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.47-61
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• 2000

Agroclimatic zoning was done for paddy rice culture in North Korea based on a simulation experiment. Daily weather data for the experiment were generated by 3 steps consisting of spatial interpolation based on topoclimatological relationships, zonal summarization of grid cell values, and conversion of monthly climate data to daily weather data. Regression models for monthly climatological temperature estimation were derived from a statistical procedure using monthly averages of 51 standard weather stations in South and North Korea (1981-1994) and their spatial variables such as latitude, altitude, distance from the coast, sloping angle, and aspect-dependent field of view (openness). Selected models (0.4 to 1.6$^{\circ}C$ RMSE) were applied to the generation of monthly temperature surface over the entire North Korean territory on 1 km$\times$l km grid spacing. Monthly precipitation data were prepared by a procedure described in Yun (2000). Solar radiation data for 27 North Korean stations were reproduced by applying a relationship found in South Korea ([Solar Radiation, MJ m$^{-2}$ day$^{-1}$ ] =0.344 + 0.4756 [Extraterrestrial Solar Irradiance) + 0.0299 [Openness toward south, 0 - 255) - 1.307 [Cloud amount, 0 - 10) - 0.01 [Relative humidity, %), $r^2$=0.92, RMSE = 0.95 ). Monthly solar irradiance data of 27 points calculated from the reproduced data set were converted to 1 km$\times$1 km grid data by inverse distance weighted interpolation. The grid cell values of monthly temperature, solar radiation, and precipitation were summed up to represent corresponding county, which will serve as a land unit for the growth simulation. Finally, we randomly generated daily maximum and minimum temperature, solar irradiance and precipitation data for 30 years from the monthly climatic data for each county based on a statistical method suggested by Pickering et a1. (1994). CERES-rice, a rice growth simulation model, was tuned to accommodate agronomic characteristics of major North Korean cultivars based on observed phenological and yield data at two sites in South Korea during 1995~1998. Daily weather data were fed into the model to simulate the crop status at 183 counties in North Korea for 30 years. Results were analyzed with respect to spatial and temporal variation in yield and maturity, and used to score the suitability of the county for paddy rice culture.