• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.41 no.4 s.115
• /
• pp.404-417
• /
• 2006

In order to clarify some characteristics of hydrological cycle in the subalpine zone of Mt. Halla, water balance has been analysed using hydrological data of a first-order drainage basin around Mansedongsan and meterological data of Odeung AWS. The experimental basin extends from 1,595 m to 1,645 m in altitude and has an catchment area of 1.34 ha. It is largely underlain by trachybasalt and covered with sasa bamboo and sedges. Hydrological observations were carried out every 20 minutes from April 15 to September 19, 2004. The basin shows the total precipitation of 3,074 m that is 1.6 to 3 times of those in coastal and intermontane regions. Surface runoff amounts to 850 mm that is equivalent to 27.6% of the precipitation. By contrast, evapotranspiration only accounts for 14.2% of the precipitation, and the remnant of 1,790 m penetrates underground through a basement. The basin is located in the subalpine zone and then it has a high rainfall intensity as well as a large rainfall due to frequent orographic precipitation. But surface runoff usually dose not exceed 30% of the rainfall while Percolation demonstrates about 2 times of the runoff. Compared with granite or gneiss basins in Korea Peninsula, the experimental basin is characterized by a higher portion of percolation in water balance. And it is probably related to the highly permeable basaltic lavas in Jeju Island which are also overlain by porous volcanic soils.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.424-433
• /
• 2021

Recent climate change has caused abnormal weather phenomena all over the world and a lot of damage in many fields of society. Particularly, a lot of recent damages were due to extreme precipitation, such as torrential downpour or drought. The objective of this study was to analyze the temporal and spatial changes in the precipitation pattern in South Korea. To achieve this objective, this study selected some of the precipitation indices suggested in previous studies to compare the temporal characteristics of precipitation induced by climate change. This study selected ten ASOS observatories of the Korea Meteorological Administration to understand the change over time for each location with considering regional distribution. This study also collected daily cumulative precipitation from 1951 to 2020 for each point. Additionally, this study generated high-resolution national daily precipitation distribution maps using an orographic precipitation model from 1981 to 2020 and analyzed them. Temporal analysis showed that although annual cumulative precipitation revealed an increasing trend from the past to the present. The number of precipitation days showed a decreasing trend at most observation points, but the number of torrential downpour days revealed an increasing trend. Spatially, the number of precipitation days and the number of torrential downpour days decreased in many areas over time, and this pattern was prominent in the central region. The precipitation pattern of South Korea can be summarized as the fewer precipitation days and larger daily precipitation over time.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.40 no.3
• /
• pp.227-239
• /
• 2019

Heavy snowfall events frequently occur in the Gangwon province, and the snowfall amount significantly varies in space due to the complex terrain and topographical modulation of precipitation. Understanding the spatial characteristics of heavy snowfall and its prediction is particularly challenging during snowfall events in the easterly winds. The easterly wind produces a significantly different atmospheric condition. Hence, it brings different precipitation characteristics. In this study, we have investigated the microphysical characteristics of snowfall in the windward and leeward sides of the Taebaek mountain range in the easterly condition. The two snowfall events are selected in the easterly, and the snow particles size distributions (SSD) are observed in the four sites (two windward and two leeward sites) by the PARSIVEL distrometers. We compared the characteristic parameters of SSDs that come from leeward sites to that of windward sites. The results show that SSDs of windward sites have a relatively wide distribution with many small snow particles compared to those of leeward sites. This characteristic is clearly shown by the larger characteristic number concentration and characteristic diameter in the windward sites. Snowfall rate and ice water content of windward also are larger than those of leeward sites. The results indicate that a new generation of snowfall particles is dominant in the windward sites which is likely due to the orographic lifting. In addition, the windward sites show heavy aggregation particles by nearby zero ground temperature that is likely driven by the wet and warm condition near the ocean.