• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.237-251
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• 2011

This study presents a review on the recent climate change over the Korean peninsula, which has experienced a significant change due to the human-induced global warming more strongly than other regions. The recent measurement of carbon dioxide concentrations over the Korean peninsula shows a faster rise than the global average, and the increasing trend in surface temperature over this region is much larger than the global mean trend. Recent observational studies reporting the weakened cold extremes and intensified warm extremes over the region support consistently the increase of mean temperature. Surface vegetation greenness in spring has also progressed relatively more quickly. Summer precipitation over the Korean peninsula has increased by about 15% since 1990 compared to the previous period. This was mainly due to an increase in August. On the other hand, a slight decrease in the precipitation (about 5%) during Changma period (rainy season of the East Asian summer monsoon), was observed. The heavy rainfall amounts exhibit an increasing trend particularly since the late 1970s, and a consecutive dry-day has also increased primarily over the southern area. This indicates that the duration of precipitation events has shortened, while their intensity became stronger. During the past decades, there have been more stronger typhoons affecting the Korean peninsula with landing more preferentially over the southeastern area. Meanwhile, the urbanization effect is likely to contribute to the rapid warming, explaining about 28% of total temperature increase during the past 55 years. The impact of El Nino on seasonal climate over the Korean peninsula has been well established - winter [summer] temperatures was generally higher [lower] than normal, and summer rainfall tends to increase during El-Nino years. It is suggested that more frequent occurrence of the 'central-Pacific El-Nino' during recent decades may have induced warmer summer and fall over the Korean peninsula. In short, detection and attribution studies provided fundamental information that needed to construct more reliable projections of future climate changes, and therefore more comprehensive researches are required for better understanding of past climate variations.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2017

Daecheong Reservoir was made by the construction of a large dam (>15 m in height) on the middle to downstream of the Geum River and the discharge systems have the watergate-spillway (WS), a hydropower penstock (HPP), and two intake towers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the limnological anomalies of turbid water reduction, green algae phenomenon, and oligotrophic state in the lower part of reservoir dam site, and compared with hydro-meteorological factors. Field surveys were conducted in two stations of near dam and the outlet of HPP with one week intervals from January to December 2000. Rainfall was closely related to the fluctuations of inflow, outflow and water level. The rainfall pattern was depended on the storm of monsoon and typhoon, and the increase of discharge and turbidity responded more strongly to the intensity than the frequency. Water temperature and DO fluctuations within the reservoir water layer were influenced by meteorological and hydrological events, and these were mainly caused by water level fluctuation based on temperature stratification, density current and discharge types. The discharges of WS and HPP induced to the flow of water bodies and the outflows of turbid water and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, respectively. Especially, when hypoxic or low-oxygen condition was present in the bottom water, the discharge through HPP has contributed significantly to the outflow of phosphorus released from the sediment into the downstream of dam. In addition, HPP effluent which be continuously operated throughout the year, was the main factor that could change to a low trophic level in the downreservoir (lacustrine zone). And water-bloom (green-tide) occurring in the lower part of reservoir was the result that the water body of upreservoir being transported and diffused toward the downreseroir, when discharging through the WS. Finally, the hydropower effluent was included the importance and dynamics that could have a temporal and spatial impacts on the physical, chemical and biological factors of the reservoir ecosystem.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.594-604
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• 2021

To evaluate the causes of beach erosion in Sinji-Myeongsasimni Beach, external forces, such as tides, tidal currents, and waves, were observed seasonally from March 2019 to March 2020, and the surface sediments were analyzed for this period. In addition, the shoreline positions and beach elevations were regularly surveyed with a VRS GPS and fixed-wing drone. From these field data, the speed of the tidal currents was noted to be insufficient, but the waves were observed to af ect the deformation of the beach. As the beach is open to the southern direction, waves of heights over 1 m were received in the S-SE direction during the spring, summer, and fall seasons. Large waves with heights over 2 m were observed during typhoons in summer and fall. Because of the absence of typhoons for the previous two years from July 2018, the beach area over datum level (DL) as of July 2018 was greater by 30,138m² compared with that of March 2019, and the beach area as of March 2020 decreased by 61,210m² compared with that of March 2019 because of four typhoon attacks after July 2018. The beach volume as of March 2019 decreased by 5.4% compared with that of July 2018 owing to two typhoons, and the beach volume as of September 2019 decreased by 7.3% because of two typhoons during the observation year. However, the volume recovered slightly by about 3% during fall and winter, when there were no high waves. According to the sediment transport vectors by GSTA, the sediments were weakly influxed from small streams located at the center of the beach; the movement vectors were not noticeable at the west beach site, but the westward sediment transport under the water and seaward vectors from the foreshore beach were prominently observed at the east beach site. These patterns of westward sediment vectors could be explained by the angle between the annual mean incident wave direction and beach opening direction. This angle was inclined 24° counterclockwise with the west-east direction. Therefore, the westward wave-induced currents developed strongly during the large-wave seasons. Hence, the sand content is high in the west-side beach but the east-side beach has been eroded seriously, where the pebbles are exposed and sand dune has decreased because of the lack of sand sources except for the soiled dunes. Therefore, it is proposed that efforts for creating new sediment sources, such as beach nourishment and reducing wave heights via submerged breakwaters, be undertaken for the eastside of the beach.