• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.119-134
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• 2023

The synoptic, thermodynamic, and dynamic characteristics of a snowfall event that occurred in the Yeongdong region on March 1-2, 2021, were investigated. Surface weather charts, ERA5 reanalysis data, rawinsonde data, GK-2A satellite data, and WISSDOM data were used for analysis. The snow depth, exceeding 10 cm, was observed at four weather stations during the analysis period. The maximum snow depth (37.4 cm) occurred at Bukgangneung. According to the analysis of the weather charts, old and dry air was trapped within relatively warm, humid air in the upper atmosphere over the East Sea and adjacent Yeongdong region. This caused unstable atmospheric conditions that led to developing convective clouds and snowfall over Bukgangneung. In particular, based on the thermodynamic and kinematic vertical analysis, we suggest that strong winds attributable to the vertical gradient of potential temperature in the low layer and the development of convective instability due to cold advection played a significant role in the occurrence of snowfall in the Yeongdong region. These results were confirmed from the vertical analysis of the rawinsonde data.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1673-1691
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• 2014

Although most natural disaster related studies conducted in Korea recently have been related to typhoons or severe rainstorms, the occurrence frequency of disasters due to windstorms or rainstorms is also high. To reduce the strong wind damage caused by strong windstorms due to climate change, basic studies of strong winds are necessary. Therefore, in this study, the types and representative cases of windstorms that were observed to have been higher than 14 m/s, which is the criterion for strong-wind warnings from the Korea Meteorological Administration, were selected from among those windstorm cases that occurred on the Korean Peninsula for 10 years to conduct a statistical analysis of them and determine their synoptic meteorological characteristics. The cases of windstorms occurring on the Korean Peninsula were divided into six weather patterns according to the locations of the anticyclones/cyclones. Among these types, the SH type, which occurs when Siberian Highs expand into the Korean Peninsula, showed the highest occurrence frequency, accounting for at least the majority of the entire occurrence frequency of windstorms together with that of the EC type, which occurs when cyclones develop on the East Sea, and there was no clear yearly trend of the occurrence frequencies of windstorms. The monthly occurrence frequencies of windstorms were formed mainly by typhoons in the summer and the Siberian Highs in the winter, and the months with the highest windstorm occurrence frequencies were December and January, in which mainly the SH and EC type windstorms occurred. March showed the next highest occurrence frequency with10 times, and SH windstorms occurred the most frequently in March, followed by the CC, SC, and EC types of windstorms, in order of precedence. Therefore, attention to these types of windstorms is required. Countermeasures against storm and flood damage in Korea targeting the summer should be re-reviewed together with pre-disaster prevention plans, because cases of storm and flood damage due to windstorms occur more frequently than those due to typhoons, and they occur throughout the year.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.479-495
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• 2021

This study investigates the synoptic (patterns of southern highs, northern lows, and lows rapidly developed by tropopause folding), thermodynamic, and kinematic characteristics of a strong wind that occurred in the Yeongdong region of South Korea on March 18-20, 2020. To do so, we analyzed data from an automatic weather station (AWS), weather charts, the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis, rawinsonde, and windprofiler radars. The daily maximum instantaneous wind speed, exceeding 20 m s^-1, was observed at five weather stations during the analysis period. The strongest instantaneous wind speed (27.7 m s^-1) appeared in the Daegwallyeong area. According to the analysis of weather charts, along with the arrangement of the north-south low-pressure line, the isobars were moved to the Yeongdong area. It showed a sine wave shape, and a strong wind developed owing to the strong pressure gradient. On March 19, in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, with a drop in atmospheric pressure of 19 hPa or more within one day, a continuous strong wind was developed by the synoptic structure of the developing polar low. In the adiabatic chart observed in Bukgangneung, the altitude of the inversion layer was located at an altitude of approximately 1-3 km above the mountaintop, along with the maximum wind speed. We confirmed that this is consistent with the results of the vertical wind field analysis of the rawinsonde and windprofiler data. In particular, based on the thermodynamic and kinematic vertical analyses, we suggest that strong winds due to the vertical gradient of potential temperature in the lower layer and the development of potential vorticity due to tropopause folding play a significant role in the occurrence of strong winds in the Yeongdong region.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.122-133
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• 2021

Cultivar parameter calibration can be affected by the reliability of the input data to a crop growth model. In South Korea, two sets of weather stations, which are included in the automated synoptic observing system (ASOS) or the automatic weather system (AWS), are available for preparation of the weather input data. The objectives of this study were to estimate the cultivar parameter using those sets of weather data and to compare the uncertainty of these parameters. The cultivar parameters of CERES-Rice model for Shindongjin cultivar was calibrated using the weather data measured at the weather stations included in either ASO S or AWS. The observation data of crop growth and management at the experiment farms were retrieved from the report of new cultivar development and research published by Rural Development Administration. The weather stations were chosen to be the nearest neighbor to the experiment farms where crop data were collected. The Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) method was used to calibrate the cultivar parameters for 100 times, which resulted in the distribution of parameter values. O n average, the errors of the heading date decreased by one day when the weather input data were obtained from the weather stations included in AWS compared with ASO S. In particular, reduction of the estimation error was observed even when the distance between the experiment farm and the ASOS stations was about 15 km. These results suggest that the use of the AWS stations would improve the reliability and applicability of the crop growth models for decision support as well as parameter calibration.

• Atmosphere
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.277-288
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• 2016

Polar lows are intense mesoscale cyclones that mainly occur over the sea in polar regions. Owing to their small spatial scale of a diameter less than 1000 km, simulating polar lows is a challenging task. At King Sejong station in West Antartica, polar lows are often observed. Despite the recent significant climatic changes observed over West Antarctica, adequate validation of regional simulations of extreme weather events such as polar lows are rare for this region. To address this gap, simulation results from a recent version of the Polar Weather Research and Forecasting model (Polar WRF) covering Antartic Peninsula at a high horizontal resolution of 3 km are validated against near-surface meteorological observations. We selected a case of high wind speed event on 7 January 2013 recorded at Automatic Meteorological Observation Station (AMOS) in King Sejong station, Antarctica. It is revealed by in situ observations, numerical weather prediction, and reanalysis fields that the synoptic and mesoscale environment of the strong wind event was due to the passage of a strong mesoscale polar low of center pressure 950 hPa. Verifying model results from 3 km grid resolution simulation against AMOS observation showed that high skill in simulating wind speed and surface pressure with a bias of $-1.1m\;s^{-1}$ and -1.2 hPa, respectively. Our evaluation suggests that the Polar WRF can be used as a useful dynamic downscaling tool for the simulation of Antartic weather systems and the near-surface meteorological instruments installed in King Sejong station can provide invaluable data for polar low studies over West Antartica.

• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.235-249
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• 2017

This paper describes methodology verifying near-surface predictability of numerical weather prediction models against the surface synoptic weather station network (SYNOP) observation. As verification variables, temperature, wind, humidity-related variables, total cloud cover, and surface pressure are included in this tool. Quality controlled SYNOP observation through the pre-processing for data assimilation is used. To consider the difference of topographic height between observation and model grid points, vertical inter/extrapolation is applied for temperature, humidity, and surface pressure verification. This verification algorithm is applied for verifying medium-range forecasts by a global forecasting model developed by Korea Institute of Atmospheric Prediction Systems to measure the near-surface predictability of the model and to evaluate the capability of the developed verification tool. It is found that the verification of near-surface prediction against SYNOP observation shows consistency with verification of upper atmosphere against global radiosonde observation, suggesting reliability of those data and demonstrating importance of verification against in-situ measurement as well. Although verifying modeled total cloud cover with observation might have limitation due to the different definition between the model and observation, it is also capable to diagnose the relative bias of model predictability such as a regional reliability and diurnal evolution of the bias.

• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.157-170
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• 2021

To investigate the effect of snowfall on the traffic of general roads in Gangwon-do, case analysis was performed in Gangneung, Pyeongchang, and Chuncheon using ASOS (Automated Synoptic Observing System) snowfall data and VDS (Vehicle Detector System) traffic data. First, we analyzed how much the traffic volume and speed decrease in snowfall cases on regional roads compared to non-snow cases, and the characteristics of monthly reduction due to snowfall were investigated. In addition, Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis were performed to quantitatively grasp the effect of snowfall on traffic volume and speed, and sensitivity tests for snowfall intensity and cumulative snowfall were performed. The results showed that the amount of snowfall caused decrease both in the traffic volume and speed from usual (non-snowfall) condition. However, the trend was different by region: The decrease rate in traffic volume was in the order of Gangneung (17~22%), Chuncheon (14~17%), and Pyeongchang (11~14%). The decrease rate in traffic speed was in the order of Chuncheon (9~10%), Gangneung (8~9%), Pyeongchang (5~6%). No significant results were found in the monthly decrease rate analysis. In all regions, traffic volume and speed showed a negative correlation with snowfall. It was confirmed that the greater the amount of traffic entering the road, the greater the slope of the trend line indicating the change in snowfall due to the traffic volume. As a result of the sensitivity test for snowfall intensity and cumulative snowfall, the snowfall information at intervals of 6-hours was the most significant.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.389-395
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• 2014

This technical note describes about the base stages of technology implementation for establishing "Early Warning System for Weather Hazard Management in Climate-smart Agriculture" to national onsite service. First of all, a special weather report service at catchment was represented sequential risk of 810 units of catchment by spatial statistical methods to existing 150 counties units special weather report released in KMA. The second, chronic hazard alarm service based on daily data of 76 Synoptic stations was monitor about 810 Catchment of mid-long term lapse weather and represented as a relative risk index chronic hazard risk of this time in preparation for the climatological normal conditions in the same period. Finally, we establish the foundation for delivering individually calculated field specific in hazard risk about volunteer farmer of early warning service demonstration area in seomjin downstream watershed. These three types of information were built a near real-time map service on the VWORLD background map of Ministry of Land as superposed layers nationwide catchment and demonstration areas within the farm unit weather hazard.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.215-220
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• 2005

The atmospheric transportation and dispersion processes of air pollutants are important issues in dealing with air pollution problems. Air pollutants originated from biological and anthropogenic activities are not only limited to the local emission sources, but could also be transported and dispersed to other regions by synoptic weather systems. Besides, the complexity of topography of central Taiwan helps accumulating air pollutants to promote high-concentration episodes. The techniques of tethersonding were applied to monitor the vertical profiles of winds, air temperatures and humidity, as well as to collect air samples, to be analyzed for pollutants $(O_3,\;NO_2,\;NO\;and\; NMHC)$ from the ground up to 1000m. A time period of about one week, 19-26 October 2002, was chosen as the sampling period due to the high frequency of episode occurrence in autumn based on the past records. Associating with the analysis of weather patterns, the atmospheric characteristics over high-concentration areas can be resolved in more detail. The result of the tethersonding studies showed that weak northerly sea breeze (with thickness about 300m) with low wind speed (about 1 to 2 m/sec) could help develop high ozone concentrations in the down-wind areas. It is also important to have a built-up aloft of precursors and ozone to develop high concentration on the previous day.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.184-210
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• 2005

The atmospheric transportation and dispersion processes of air pollutants are important issues in dealing with air pollution problems. Air pollutants originated from biological and anthropogenic activities are not only limited to the local emission sources, but could also be transported and dispersed to other regions by synoptic weather systems. Besides, the complexity of topography of central Taiwan helps accumulating air pollutants to promote high-concentration episodes. The techniques of tethersonding were applied to monitor the vertical profiles of winds, air temperatures and humidity, as well as to collect air samples, to be analyzed for pollutants ($O_3,\;NO_2$, NO and NMHC) from the ground up to 1000 m. A time period of about one week, 19 -26 October 2002, was chosen as the sampling period due to the high frequency of episode occurrence in autumn based on the past records. Associating with the analysis of weather patterns, the atmospheric characteristics over high-concentration areas can be resolved in more detail. The result of the tethersonding studies showed that weak northerly sea breeze (with thickness about 300 m) with now wind speed (about 1 to 2 m/sec) could help develop high ozone concentrations in the down-wind areas. It is also important to have a built-up aloft of precursors and ozone to develop high concentration on the previous day.