• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2008

Information on daily maximum air temperature is important in predicting the status of plants and insects, but the uneven and sparse distribution of weather stations prohibits timely access to the data in regions with complex topography. Since cumulative solar irradiance plays a critical role in determining daily maximum temperature on any sloping surfaces, derivation of a quantitative relationship between cumulative solar irradiance and the resultant daily maximum temperature is a prerequisite to development of such estimation models. Air temperatures at 8 sideslope locations with similar elevation and slope angle but aspect, circumventing a cone-shaped, grass-covered parasitic volcano (c.a., 570 m diameter for the bottom circle and 90m bottom-to-top height), were measured from June to December in 2007. Daily maximum temperatures from each location were compared with the average of 8 locations (assumed to be the temperature measured at a "horizontal reference" position). The temperature deviation at all locations increased with the day of year (or sun elevation) from summer solstice to winter solstice. Averaged over the entire period, the south facing location was warmer by $1^{\circ}C$ in daily maximum temperature than "horizontal reference" and the north facing location was cooler by $0.8^{\circ}C$ than the reference, resulting in the year round average south-north temperature difference of $1.8^{\circ}C$. In November, both south and north facing slopes showed the greatest deviation of $+2.0^{\circ}C$ and $-1.3^{\circ}C$, respectively in daily maximum temperature at monthly scale. On a daily scale, the greatest deviation was +3.8 and $2.7^{\circ}C$ at the south and north slope, respectively. The cumulative solar irradiance (on the slope for 4 hours from 11:00 to 15:00 TST) explained >60% of the variance in daily maximum temperature deviations among 8 locations, suggesting a feasibility of developing an estimation model for daily maximum temperature over complex topography at landscape scales.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.86-92
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to measure curvature contour skin dose using radiochromic film and TLD for a conventional open field. We also attempted to quantify the degradation of skin sparing associated with use of immobilization devices for high energy photon beams and to calculate the skin dose with a help of Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. To simulate head-and-neck and shoulder treatment, a cylindrical solid water phantom 11 cm in diameter was irradiated with 6 MV x-rays using $40{\times}40\;cm^2$ field at 100 cm source axis distance (SAD) to the center of the phantom. Aquaplastic mesh mask was placed on the surface of the cylindrical phantom that mimicked relevant clinical situations. The skin dose profile was obtained by taking measurements from $0^{\circ}$ to $360^{\circ}$ around the circumference of the cylindrical phantom. The skin doses obtained from radiochromic film were found to be 47% of the maximum dose of $D_{max}$ at the $0^{\circ}$ beam entry position and 61% at the $90^{\circ}$ oblique beam position without the mask. Using the mask (1.5 mm), the skin dose received was 59% at $0^{\circ}$ incidence and 78% at $80^{\circ}$ incidence. Skin dose results were also gathered using thin thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD). With the mask, the skin dose was 66% at $0^{\circ}$ incidence and 80% at $80^{\circ}$ incidence. This method with the mask revealed the similar pattern as film measurement. For the treatments of the head-and-neck and shoulder regions in which immobilization mask was used, skin doses at around tangential angle were nearly the same as the prescription dose. When a sloping skin contour is encountered, skin doses may be abated using thinner and more perforated immoblization devices which should still maintain immoblization.

• 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.