• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.176-184
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• 2011

Cold air on sloping surfaces flows down to the valley bottom in mountainous terrain at calm and clear nights. Based on the assumption that the cold air flow may be the same as the water flow, current models estimate temperature drop by regarding the cold air accumulation at a given location as the water-like free drainage. At a closed catchment whose outlet is blocked by man-made obstacles such as banks and roads, however, the water-like free drainage assumption is no longer valid because the cold air accumulates from the bottom first. We developed an empirical model to estimate quantitatively the effect of cold pool on nocturnal temperature in a closed catchment. In our model, a closed catchment is treated like a "vessel", and a digital elevation model (DEM) was used to calculate the maximum capacity of the cold pool formed in a closed catchment. We introduce a topographical variable named "shape factor", which is the ratio of the cold air accumulation potential across the whole catchment area to the maximum capacity of the cold pool to describe the relative size of temperature drop at a wider range of catchment shapes. The shape factor is then used to simulate the density profile of cold pool formed in a given catchment based on a hypsometric equation. The cold lake module was incorporated with the existing model (i.e., Chung et al., 2006), generating a new model and predicting distribution of minimum temperature over closed catchments. We applied this model to Akyang valley (i.e., a typical closed catchment of 53 $km^2$ area) in the southern skirt of Mt. Jiri National Park where 12 automated weather stations (AWS) are operational. The performance of the model was evaluated based on the feasibility of delineating the temperature pattern accurately at cold pool forming at night. Overall, the model's ability of simulating the spatial pattern of lower temperature were improved especially at the valley bottom, showing a similar pattern of the estimated temperature with that of thermal images obtained across the valley at dawn (0520 to 0600 local standard time) of 17 May 2011. Error in temperature estimation, calculated with the root mean square error using the 10 low-lying AWSs, was substantially decreased from $1.30^{\circ}C$ with the existing model to $0.71^{\circ}C$ with the new model. These results suggest the feasibility of the new method in predicting the site-specific freeze and frost warning at a closed catchment.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.133-140
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• 2002

Site-specific minimum temperature forecasts are critical in a short-term decision making procedure for preventive measures as well as a long-term strategy such as site selection in fruits industry. Nocturnal cold air pools frequently termed in mountainous areas under anticyclonic systems are very dangerous to the flowering buds in spring over Korea, but the spatial resolution to detect them exceeds the current weather forecast scale. To supplement the insufficient spatial resolution of official forecasts, we developed a GIS - assisted frost risk assesment scheme for using in mountainous areas. Daily minimum temperature data were obtained from 6 sites located in a 2.1 by 2.1 km area with complex topography near the southern edge of Sobaek mountains during radiative cooling nights in spring 2001. A digital elevation model with a 10 m spatial resolution was prepared for the entire study area and the cold air inflow was simulated for each grid cell by counting the number of surrounding cells coming into the processing cell. Primitive temperature surfaces were prepared for the corresponding dates by interpolating the Korea Meteorological Administration's automated observational data with the lapse rate correction. The cell temperature values corresponding to the 6 observation sites were extracted from the primitive temperature surface, and subtracted from the observed values to obtain the estimation error. The errors were regressed to the flow accumulation at the corresponding cells, delineating a statistically significant relationship. When we applied this relationship to the primitive temperature surfaces of frost nights during April 2002, there was a good agreement with the observations, showing a feasibility of site-specific frost warning system development in mountainous areas.