• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.377-394
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• 2021

The recent largest forest fire in the Yeongdong region, Goseung/Okgae fires of 2019 occurred during YangGang wind event. The wind can be locally gusty and extremely dry, particularly in the complex terrain of Yeongdong. These winds can cause and/or rapidly spread wildfires, the threat of which is serious during the dry spring season. This study examines the spatial variability of the surface wind and its coupling with the upper atmospheric wind using the data during the IOP of the Gangwon Yeongdong Wind Experiments (G-WEX) conducted in 2020 and the data during YangGang wind event on 4~5 April 2019. In the case of IOPs, strong wind at the surface with a constant wind direction appears in the mountain area, and weak wind with large variability in wind direction appears from foothill to the coast in the vicinity of Gangneung region. However, in the 2019 event, strong wind at the surface with a constant wind direction appears in the entire region from the mountain to the coast, even with the stronger wind in the coast than in some part of the mountain area. The characteristics of the upper atmospheric wind related with the spatial distribution of surface wind show that during IOPs of G-WEX, a strong downdraft exists near the mountaintop in the level of about 1 to 4 km. However, in the 2019 event a strong downdraft is reinforced, when its location moves toward the coast and descends close to the ground. These downdrafts are generated by the breaking of mountain waves.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.177-188
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• 2012

The meteorological events that cause most strong winds in Brazil are extra-tropical cyclones, downbursts and tornadoes. However, one hurricane formed off the coastline of southern Brazil in 2005, a tropical storm formed in 2010 and there are predictions that others may form again. Events such as those described in the paper and which have occurred before 1987, generate data for the wind map presented in the Brazilian wind loading code NBR-6123. This wind map presents the reference wind speeds based on 3-second gust wind speed at 10 m height in open terrain, with 50-year return period, varying from 30 m/s (north half of country) to 50 m/s (extreme south). There is not a separation of the type of climatological event which generated each registered velocity. Therefore, a thunderstorm (TS), an extra-tropical pressure system (EPS) or even a tropical cyclone (TC) are treated the same and its resulting velocities absorbed without differentiation. Since the flow fields generated by each type of meteorological event may be distinct, the indiscriminate combination of the highest wind velocities with aerodynamic coefficients from boundary layer wind tunnels may lead to erroneous loading in buildings.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.156-164
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• 2018

In order to investigate the upwelling and island effects following the wind storm events in the East Sea (i.e., Uljin-Ulleungdo-Dokdo line) during spring, we assessed the vertical and horizontal profiles of abiotic and biotic factors, including phytoplankton communities. The assessment was based on the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) and field survey data. A strong south wind occurred on May 3, when the lowest sea level pressure (987.3 hPa) in 2016 was observed. Interestingly, after this event, huge blooms of phytoplankton were observed on May 12 along the East Korean Warm Current (EKWC), including the in the offshore waters of Ulleungdo and Dokdo. Although the diatoms dominated the EKWC area between the Uljin coastal waters and Ulleungdo, the population density of raphidophytes Heterosigma akashiwo was high in the offshore waters of Ulleungdo-Dokdo. Based on the vertical profiles of Chlorophyll-a (Chl. a), the sub-surface Chl. a maximum appeared at 20 m depths between Uljin and Ulluengdo, whereas relatively high Chl. a was distributed equally across the entire water column around the waters of Ulleungdo and Dokdo islands. This implies that the water mixing (i.e., upwelling) at the two islands, that occurred after the strong wind event, may have brought the rapid proliferation of autotrophic algae, with nutrient input, to the euphotic layer. Therefore, we have demonstrated that a strong south wind caused the upwelling event around the south-eastern Korean peninsula, which is one of the most important role in occurring the spring phytoplankton blooms along the EKWC. In addition, the phytoplankton blooms may have potentially influenced the oligotrophic waters with discrete time lags in the vicinity of Ulleungdo and Dokdo. This indicates that the phytoplankton community structure in the offshore waters of Ulleungdo-Dokdo is dependent upon the complicated water masses moving related to meandering of the EKWC.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.29 no.12
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• pp.1223-1237
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• 2020

This study focused on comparing the meteorological conditions in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) on high-event days and non-event days in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA). We utilized observed PM10 and meteorological variables at the surface as well as at the upper heights. The results showed that high-event days were consistently associated with lower wind speed, whereas wind direction showed no particular difference between high-event and non-event days with frequent westerlies and northwesterlies for both cases. During high-event days, the temperature was much warmer than the monthly normal values with a sharp increasing trend, and Relative Humidity (RH) was higher than the monthly normal, especially on high-event days in February. During high-event days in spring, a double inversion layer was present at surface and upper heights. This indicates that stability in the multi-layer is an important indicator of higher PM10 concentrations. Net radiation in spring and winter is also closely associated with higher PM10 concentrations. Strong net radiation resulted in large sensible heat, which in turn facilitated a deeper mixing height with diluted PM10 concentrations; in contrast, PM10 concentrations were higher when sensible heat in spring and winter was very low. We also confirmed that convective and friction velocity was higher on non-event days than on high-event days, and this was especially obvious in spring and winter. This indicated that thermal turbulence was dominant in spring, whereas in winter, mechanical turbulence was dominant over the SMA.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.397-416
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• 2008

This study investigates a long-term variation of the annual extreme value for the instantaneous wind speed and the daily precipitation during 56 years (1951-2006) in Korea. Results show that there is a uptrend for both wind and precipitation extreme records, although regional trends are different from overall pattern in some places, particularly for wind speed. The estimated linear trends are 230 mm/56 yr in the daily precipitation and $15ms^{-1}$/56 yr in the maximum instantaneous wind speed. For precipitation, other indexes such as total annual precipitation, the number of extreme precipitation event, and precipitation intensity have dramatically increased as well, while there has been a clear downtrend for the number of strong wind events (> $14ms^{-1}$). It is found that the minimum surface pressure recorded during typhoon attacks in Korea tends to be decreasing, about 10 hPa/56 yr. This partly explains why the extreme values in the precipitation are increasing in Korea.

• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.283-301
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• 2014

In 2010, only 14 tropical cyclones (TCs) were generated over the western North Pacific (WNP), which was the smallest since 1951. This study summarizes characteristics of TCs generated in 2010 over the WNP and investigates the causes of the record-breaking TC genesis. A long-term variation of TC activity in the WNP and verification of official track forecast in 2010 are also examined. Monthly tropical sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly data reveal that El Ni$\tilde{n}$o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event in 2010 was shifted from El Ni$\tilde{n}$o to La Ni$\tilde{n}$a in June and the La Ni$\tilde{n}$a event was strong and continued to the end of the year. We found that these tropical environments leaded to unfavorable conditions for TC formation at main TC development area prior to May and at tropics east of $140^{\circ}E$ during summer mostly due to low SST, weak convection, and strong vertical wind shear in those areas. The similar ENSO event (in shifting time and La Ni$\tilde{n}$a intensity) also occurred in 1998, which was the second smallest TC genesis year (16 TCs) since 1951. The common point of the two years suggests that the ENSO episode shifting from El Ni$\tilde{n}$o to strong La Ni$\tilde{n}$a in summer leads to extremely low TC genesis during La Ni$\tilde{n}$a although more samples are needed for confidence. In 2010, three TCs, DIANMU (1004), KOMPASU (1007) and MALOU (1009), influenced the Korean Peninsula (KP) in spite of low total TC genesis. These TCs were all generated at high latitude above $20^{\circ}N$ and arrived over the KP in short time. Among them, KOMPASU (1007) brought the most serious damage to the KP due to strong wind. For 14 TCs in 2010, mean official track forecast error of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) for 48 hours was 215 km, which was the highest among other foreign agencies although the errors are generally decreasing for last 10 years, suggesting that more efforts are needed to improve the forecast skill.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.233-238
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• 2016

The missing historical record of the Cassiopeia A (Cas A) supernova (SN) event implies a large extinction to the SN, possibly greater than the interstellar extinction to the current SN remnant. Here we investigate the possibility that the guest star that appeared near Cas A in 1592-1593 in Korean history books could have been an 'impostor' of the Cas A SN, i.e., a luminous transient that appeared to be a SN but did not destroy the progenitor star, with strong mass loss to have provided extra circumstellar extinction. We first review the Korean records and show that a spatial coincidence between the guest star and Cas A cannot be ruled out, as opposed to previous studies. Based on modern astrophysical findings on core-collapse SN, we argue that Cas A could have had an impostor and derive its anticipated properties. It turned out that the Cas A SN impostor must have been bright ($M_V=-14.7{\pm}2.2mag$) and an amount of dust with visual extinction of ${\geq}2.8{\pm}2.2mag$ should have formed in the ejected envelope and/or in a strong wind afterwards. The mass loss needs to have been spherically asymmetric in order to see the light echo from the SN event but not the one from the impostor event.

• 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.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.149-160
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• 1983

Extensive wind, sea level and sea surface temperature (SST) data collected along the east coast of Korea in 1973-1979 were used to ascribe the variations of sea level and SST associated with wind forcing during summer. Alongshore components of wind were dominant but the offshore components were little significance in the southeast coast in summer. The variations in SST and sea level adjusted barometricallyagreed with the upwelling-downwelling processes and showed a rapid response to wind.Appearance of cold water to the surface in the upwelling region concurred well with te periods of positive y-component wind when the tangential line at Ulgi was takem as the y-axis. In general, SST at Ulgi and Gampo as well as the adjusted sea level at Pohang, Ulsan and Busan decreased significantly when strong winds favorable for upwelling persisted for more then three days whereas they increased during the relaxation or unfavorable periods. The period of an upwelling event, on the average, was about 10 days and the mean speed of alongshore sind was 4.0m/sec.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2023

The latest revision of AS/NZS 1170.2 incorporates some new research and knowledge on strong winds, climate change, and shape factors for new structures of interest such as solar panels. Unlike most other jurisdictions, Australia and New Zealand covers a vast area of land, a latitude range from 11° to 47°S climatic zones from tropical to cold temperate, and virtually every type of extreme wind event. The latter includes gales from synoptic-scale depressions, severe convectively-driven downdrafts from thunderstorms, tropical cyclones, downslope winds, and tornadoes. All except tornadoes are now covered within AS/NZS 1170.2. The paper describes the main features of the 2021 edition with emphasis on the new content, including the changes in the regional boundaries, regional wind speeds, terrain-height, topographic and direction multipliers. A new 'climate change multiplier' has been included, and the gust and turbulence profiles for over-water winds have been revised. Amongst the changes to the provisions for shape factors, values are provided for ground-mounted solar panels, and new data are provided for curved roofs. New methods have been given for dynamic response factors for poles and masts, and advice given for acceleration calculations for high-rise buildings and other dynamically wind-sensitive structures.