• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.607-623
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• 2021

This study presents projections of future extreme climate over the Korean Peninsula (KP), using bias-corrected data from multiple regional climate model (RCM) simulations in CORDEX-EA Phase 2 project. In order to confirm difference according to degree of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, high GHG path of SSP5-8.5 and low GHG path of SSP1-2.6 scenario are used. Under SSP5-8.5 scenario, mean temperature and precipitation over KP are projected to increase by 6.38℃ and 20.56%, respectively, in 2081~2100 years compared to 1995~2014 years. Projected changes in extreme climate suggest that intensity indices of extreme temperatures would increase by 6.41℃ to 8.18℃ and precipitation by 24.75% to 33.74%, being bigger increase than their mean values. Both of frequency indices of the extreme climate and consecutive indices of extreme precipitation are also projected to increase. But the projected changes in extreme indices vary regionally. Under SSP1-2.6 scenario, the extreme climate indices would increase less than SSP5-8.5 scenario. In other words, temperature (precipitation) intensity indices would increase 2.63℃ to 3.12℃ (14.09% to 16.07%). And there is expected to be relationship between mean precipitation and warming, which mean precipitation would increase as warming with bigger relationship in northern KP (4.08% ℃^-1) than southern KP (3.53% ℃^-1) under SSP5-8.5 scenario. The projected relationship, however, is not significant for extreme precipitation. It seems because of complex characteristics of extreme precipitation from summer monsoon and typhoon over KP.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.87-94
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• 2015

To compare changes in winter temperature over South Korea, 30-year average climate data and climate data of recent 10 years (2014~2014) such as mean temperature, daily maximum temperature and daily minimum temperature were analyzed. Also, we set analysis extreme cold waves frequency related to winter such as freezing days, snow days, days with temperature of below -5, and days with temperature of below -10. This process enabled the comparative analysis of winter temperature changes and extreme cold waves frequency related to winter. This study estimated that winter temperature has gradually increased throughout the last five decades, however, the frequency of extreme weather, such as cold waves has also increased.

• Atmosphere
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2022

Recently, Japan's Meteorological Research Institute presented the d4PDF database (Database for Policy Decision-Making for Future Climate Change, d4PDF) through large-scale climate ensemble simulations to overcome uncertainty arising from variability when the general circulation model represents extreme-scale precipitation. In this study, the change of precipitation characteristics between the historical and future climate conditions in the Yongdam-dam basin was analyzed using the d4PDF data. The result shows that annual mean precipitation and seasonal mean precipitation increased by more than 10% in future climate conditions. This study also performed an analysis on the change of the return period rainfall. The annual maximum daily rainfall was extracted for each climatic condition, and the rainfall with each return period was estimated. In this process, we represent the extreme-scale rainfall corresponding to a very long return period without any statistical model and method as the d4PDF provides rainfall data during 3,000 years for historical climate conditions and during 5,400 years for future climate conditions. The rainfall with a 50-year return period under future climate conditions exceeded the rainfall with a 100-year return period under historical climate conditions. Consequently, in future climate conditions, the magnitude of rainfall increased at the same return period and, the return period decreased at the same magnitude of rainfall. In this study, by using the d4PDF data, it was possible to analyze the change in extreme magnitude of rainfall.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.391-401
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• 2019

This study first investigates the changes of the mean and extreme temperatures and precipitation in East Asia (EA) under stabilized 1.5℃ and 2℃ warming conditions above preindustrial levels provided by HAPPI project. Here, five model with 925 members for 10-year historical period (2006~2015) and 1.5/2.0℃ future warming scenarios (2091~2100) have been used and monthly based data have been analyzed. The results show that the spatial distribution fields over EA and domain averaged variables in HAPPI 1.5/2.0℃ hindcast simulations are comparable to observations. It is found that the magnitude of mean temperature warming in EA and Korea is similar to the global mean, but for extreme temperatures local higher warming trend for minimum temperature is significant. In terms of precipitation, most subregion in EA will see more increased precipitation under 1.5/2.0℃ warming compared to the global mean. These attribute for probability density function of analyzed variables to get wider with increasing mean values in 1.5/2.0℃ warming conditions. As the result of vulnerability of 0.5℃ additional warming from 1.5 to 2.0℃, 0.5℃ additional warming contributes to the increases in extreme events and especially the impact over South Korea is slightly larger than EA. Therefore, limiting global warming by 0.5℃ can help avoid the increases in extreme temperature and precipitation events in terms of intensity and frequency.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.267-275
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• 2013

This study projected the future ocean wave climate changes based on global climate change scenario using the coupled climate model HadGEM2-AO according to the emission scenarios and using regional wave model. Annual mean significant wave height (SWH) is linked closely to annual mean wind speed during the forthcoming 21st Century. Because annual mean speed decreased in the western North Pacific, annual mean SWH is projected to decrease in the future. The annual mean SWH decreases for the last 30 years of the 21st century relative to the period 1971-2000 are 2~7% for RCP4.5 and 4~11% for RCP8.5, respectively. Also, extreme SWH and wind speed are projected to decrease in the future. In terms of seasonal mean, winter extreme SWH shows similar trend with annual extreme SWH; however, that of summer shows large increasing tendency compared with current climate in the western North Pacific. Therefore, typhoon intensity in the future might be more severe in the future climate.

• Atmosphere
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.477-492
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• 2023

Based on the new climate normals (1991~2020), annual mean, maximum and minimum temperature is 12.5℃, 18.2℃, and 7.7℃, respectively while annual precipitation is 1,331.7 mm, the annual mean wind speed is 2.0 m s^-1, and the relative humidity is 67.8% in the Republic of Korea. Compared to 1981~2010 normal, annual mean temperature increased by 0.2℃, maximum and minimum temperatures increased by 0.3℃, while the amount of precipitation (0.7%) and relative humidity (1.1%) decreased. There was no distinct change in annual mean wind speed. The spatial range of the annual mean temperature in the new normals is large from 7.1 to 16.9℃. Annual precipitation showed a high regional variability, ranging from 787.3 to 2,030.0 mm. The annual mean relative humidity decreased at most weather stations due to the rise in temperature, and the annual mean wind speed did not show any distinct difference between the new and old normals. With the addition of a warmer decade (2011~2020), temperatures all increased consistently and in particular, the increase in the maximum temperature, which had not significantly changed in previous decades, was evident. The increasing trend of annual and summer precipitation by the 2010s has disappeared in the new normals. Among extreme climate indices, MxT30 (Daily maximum temperature ≥ 33℃ days), MnT25 (Daily minimum temperature ≥ 25℃ days), and PH30 (1 hour maximum precipitation ≥ 30 mm days) increased while MnT-10 (Daily minimum temperature < -10℃ days) and W13.9 (Daily maximum wind speed ≥ 13.9 m/s days) decreased at a statistically significant level. It is thought that a detailed study on the different trends of climate elements and extreme climate indices by region should be conducted in the future.

• Atmosphere
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2023

Holding the longest observation data from April 1904, Busan is one of the essential points to understand the climate variability of the Korean Peninsula without missing data since implementing the modern weather observation of the South Korea. Busan is featured by coastal areas and affected by various climate factors and fluctuations. This study aims to investigate climate variability and changes in climatic variables, extremes, and several weather indexes. The statistically significant change points in daily mean rainfall intensity and temperature were found in 1964 and 1965. Based on the change point detection, 117 years were divided into two periods for daily mean rainfall intensity and temperature, respectively. In the long-term temperature analysis of Busan, the increasing trend of the daily maximum temperature during the period of 1965~2021 was larger than the daily mean temperature and the daily minimum temperature. Applying Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition, daily maximum temperature is largely affected by the decadal variability compared to the daily mean and minimum temperature. In addition, the trend of daily precipitation intensity from 1964~2021 shows a value of about 0.50 mm day^-1, suggesting that the rainfall intensity has increased compared to the preceding period. The results in extremes analysis demonstrate that return values of both extreme temperatures and precipitation show higher values in the latter than in the former period, indicating that the intensity of the current extreme phenomenon increases. For Wet-Bulb Globe Temperature (effective humidity), increasing (decreasing) trend is significant in Busan with the second (third)-largest change among four stations.

• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.161-161
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• 2003

During the last century, most scientific questions related to climate change were focused on the evidence of anthropogenic global warming (IPCC, 2001). There are robust evidences of warming and also human-induced climate change. We now understand the global, mean change a little bit better; however, the uncertainties for regional climate change still remains large. The purpose of this study is to understand the past climate change over Korea based on the observational data and to project future regional climate change over East Asia using ECHAM4/HOPE model and MM5 for downscaling. There are significant evidences on regional climate change in Korea, from several variables. The mean annual temperature over Korea has increased about 1.5∼$1.7^{\circ}C$ during the 20th century, including urbanization effect in large cities which can account for 20-30% of warming in the second half of the 20th century. Cold extreme temperature events occurred less frequently especially in the late 20th century, while hot extreme temperature events were more common than earlier in the century. The seasonal and annual precipitation was analyzed to examine long-term trend on precipitation intensity and extreme events. The number of rainy days shows a significant negative trend, which is more evident in summer and fall. Annual precipitation amount tends to increase slightly during the same period. This suggests an increase of precipitation intensity in this area. These changes may influence on growing seasons, floods and droughts, diseases and insects, marketing of seasonal products, energy consumption, and socio-economic sectors. The Korean Peninsular is located at the eastern coast of the largest continent on the earth withmeso-scale mountainous complex topography and itspopulation density is very high. And most people want to hear what will happen in their back yards. It is necessary to produce climate change scenario to fit forhigh-resolution (in meteorological sense, but low-resolution in socio-economic sense) impact assessment. We produced one hundred-year, high-resolution (∼27 km), regional climate change scenario with MM5 and recognized some obstacles to be used in application. The boundary conditions were provided from the 240-year simulation using the ECHAM4/HOPE-G model with SRES A2 scenario. Both observation and simulation data will compose past and future regional climate change scenario over Korea.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.103-115
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• 2018

The uncertainty of climate scenarios, as initial information, is one of the significant factors among uncertainties of climate change impacts and vulnerability assessments. In this sense, the quantification of the uncertainty of climate scenarios is essential to understanding these assessments of impacts and vulnerability for adaptation to climate change. Here we quantified the precision of surface temperature of ensemble scenarios (high resolution (1km) RCP4.5 and 8.5) provided by Korea Meteorological Administration, with spatiotemporal variation of the standard deviation of them. From 2021 to 2050, the annual increase rate of RCP8.5 was higher than that of RCP4.5 while the annual variation of RCP8.5 was lower than that of RCP4.5. The standard deviations of ensemble scenarios are higher in summer and winter, particularly in July and January, when the extreme weather events could occur. In general, the uncertainty of ensemble scenarios in summer were lower than those in winter. In spatial distribution, the standard deviation of ensemble scenarios in Seoul Metropolitan Area is relatively higher than other provinces, while that of Yeongnam area is lower than other provinces. In winter, the standard deviations of ensemble scenarios of RCP4.5 and 8.5 in January are higher than those of December. Especially, the standard deviation of ensemble scenarios is higher in the central regions including Gyeonggi, and Gangwon, where the mean surface temperature is lower than southern regions along with Chungbuk. Such differences in precisions of climate ensemble scenarios imply that those uncertainty information should be taken into account for the implementation of national climate change policy.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.387-393
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• 2018

Considering the effect of climate change, a quantitative analysis of extreme drought is needed to reduce the damage from extreme droughts. Therefore, in this study, a quantitative risk analysis of extreme drought was conducted. The threshold level method was applied to define a drought event using Cheugugi rainfall data in past, gauged rainfall data in present, and climate change scenario rainfall data in future. A bivariate drought frequency analysis was performed using the copula function to simultaneously consider two major drought characteristics such as duration and severity. Based on the bivariate drought frequency curves, the risks for the past, present and future were calculated and the risks for future extreme drought were analyzed comparing with the past and present. As a result, the mean drought duration of the future was shorter than that of past and present, however, the mean drought severity was much larger. Therefore short term and severe droughts were expected to occur in the future. In addition, the analysis of the maximum drought risk indicated that the future maximum drought risk was 1.39~1.94 times and 1.33~1.81 times higher than the past and present. Finally, the risk of extreme drought over past and present maximum drought in the future was very high, ranging from 0.989 to 1.0, and the occurrence probability of extreme drought was high in the future.