The long-term variability of Changma in the East Asian summer monsoon system: A review and revisit

Changma, which is a vital part of East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) system, plays a critical role in modulating water and energy cycles in Korea. Better understanding of its long-term variability and change is therefore a matter of scientific and societal importance. It has been indicated that characteristics of Changma have undergone significant interdecadal changes in association with the mid-1970s global-scale climate shift and the mid-1990s EASM shift. This paper reviews and revisits the characteristics on the long-term changes of Changma focusing on the underlying mechanisms for the changes. The four important features are manifested mainly during the last few decades: 1) mean and extreme rainfalls during Changma period from June to September have been increased with the amplification of diurnal cycle of rainfall, 2) the dry spell between the first and second rainy periods has become shorter, 3) the rainfall amount as well as the number of rainy days during August have significantly increased, probably due to the increase in typhoon landfalls, and 4) the relationship between the Changma rainfall and Western Pacific Subtropical High on interannual time scale has been enhanced. The typhoon contribution to the increase in heavy rainfall is attributable to enhanced interaction between typhoons and midlatitude baroclinic environment. It is noted that the change in the relationship between Changma and the tropical sea surface temperature (SST) over the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans is a key factor in the long-term changes of Changma and EASM. Possible sources for the recent mid-1990s change include 1) the tropical dipole-like SST pattern between the central Pacific and Indo-Pacific region (the global warming hiatus pattern), 2) the recent intensification of tropical SST gradients among the Indian Ocean, the western Pacific, and the eastern Pacific, and 3) the tropical Atlantic SST warming.     

Experimental and numerical studies on the development of a new wave absorber

This paper proposes a new wave absorber made of flexible net structures. To test the efficiency of the proposed water absorber, experiments were done on wave absorbers of various lengths of and the thicknesses of the wave absorber. To perform a numerical modeling of the proposed wave absorber, damping terms were introduced in linearized free-surface boundary conditions. The length and the thickness of the wave absorber were modeled by the length and the coefficient of the damping zones. The boundary element method was adopted to solve the system. Series of experiments were performed to obtain the data for the coefficients of the damping term needed in numerical calculations. The predicted wave heights agreed very closely with those of experiments when the lengths of the incoming waves were within the order of the length of the wave absorber.     

Wave profile measurement by wavelet transform

A new technique for measuring wave profiles by wavelet transform using the Mexican Hat wavelet as the mother wavelet is introduced. This technique has the potential to provide low cost, high resolution field measurements of wave profiles in the laboratory. The experiments to capture the video image of the wave profile were carried out in a wave flume. Then, the Mexican Hat wavelet was adopted to trace out the exact profiles of the waves from the captured video images. The series of tests on numerical data and video images show promise as means of detecting two-dimensional profiles of waves.     

Wavelet transform based coherence analysis of freak wave and its impact

The present paper presents the results of a wavelet transform-based coherence analysis of freak wave and its impact. Wavelet transform has been used as a tool in analyzing signals in the time domain as well as in the frequency domain. The analysis was applied to laboratory-generated freak waves. The wavelet transform of the time history of the freak wave and its impact force revealed that a wide range of frequency components were contained in them. The coherence analysis was conducted on the wave and its impact force time histories. The coherence analysis revealed that some high-frequency components were highly correlated with the impact forces. The present study demonstrates that the wavelet transform can be an alternative tool in the analysis of strongly nonlinear freak wave and its impact.     

A parametric sensitivity study on LNG tank sloshing loads by numerical simulations

A series of parametric sensitivity studies on unmatched dimensionless scale parameters is carried out on the liquified natural gas (LNG) tank sloshing loads by using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program. First, a brief dimensional analysis is conducted to identify the governing and non-matched non-dimensional parameters, assuming that Froude scaling law is adopted. Then the sensitivity of impact pressure is checked through numerical simulations against non-matched parameters, such as fluid viscosity, liquid-gas density ratio, and ullage pressure and compressibility. The CFD simulations are also verified against experimental results. It is concluded that the effects of viscosity and density ratio are insignificant, while the compressibility of ullage space plays an appreciable role, as was pointed out by Bass et al. [Bass, R.L., Bowles, E.B., Trudell, R.W., Navickas, J., Peck, J.C., Yoshimura, N., Endo, S., Pots, B.F.M., 1985. Modeling criteria for scaled LNG sloshing experiments. Transactions of the ASME 107, 272-280].     

Lateral and consolidation behaviors of seabed-type breakwater for very soft ground

A seabed-type of breakwater applicable to very soft ground without the need for soil improvement is newly developed. This type of soft-ground breakwater is expected to ensure sufficient lateral resistance and prevent excessive consolidation settlement due to self-weight of the breakwater. In this paper, lateral and consolidation behaviors of soft-ground breakwater were investigated by performing model tests and finite element simulations. The results revealed that the bottom wall and buoyant box, which are the main features of soft-ground breakwater, contribute to the increase in lateral resistance and to the control of the consolidation settlements, respectively, and that Terzaghi's consolidation theory could be conservatively adopted in deriving the consolidation settlements of soft-ground breakwater proposed herein.     

Phylogenetic relationship between symbionts of tubeworm <Emphasis Type="Italic">Lamellibrachia satsuma</Emphasis> and the sediment microbial community in Kagoshima Bay

Vestimentiferan tubeworms acquire their symbionts through horizontal transmission from the surrounding environment. In the present study, we constructed a 16S rRNA gene clone library to investigate the phylogenetic relationship between diverse microbes in the sediment and symbiotic bacteria in the trophosome of the tubeworm, Lamellibrachia satsuma, from Kagoshima Bay, Japan. Two symbiotic bacterial phylotypes belonging to the classes γ- and ε-Proteobacteria were found from this tubeworm trophosome. They were very closely related to the symbionts of several other marine invertebrates. The most predominant bacteria in the sediment were ε-Proteobacteria. A broad diversity of bacteria belonged to non-proteobacterial phyla such as Planctomycetes, Acidobacteria, and Chloroflexi was observed. The presence of sulfur oxidizers (i.e., ε-Proteobacteria and γ-Proteobacteria) and sulfur reducers (i.e., δ-Proteobacteria) may play a significant role in the sulfur cycle in these habitats and provide multiple sources of nutrition to the cold-seep communities. Closely related clones of ε-Proteobacteria symbiont in the species level and of γ-Proteobacteria symbiont in the genus level were found in the surrounding sediment. The similarity of symbiont clones of L. satsuma with other symbionts and free-living bacteria suggests the possibility of opportunistic symbiosis in ε-Proteobacteria and the co-evolution of γ-Proteobacteria having occurred after symbiosis with the tubeworms.     

Methodology for Quantitative Estimation of One-Dimensional Consolidation Settlement Based on Hybrid Simulation Method

A hybrid simulation system, HyCoS, was developed involving the control, measurement, and analysis process in order to realize the basic algorithm of hybrid consolidation simulation. The system was fully automated by the development of the program HyCoS. Furthermore, a computer program, CONPERM, was also developed to obtain soil constitutive relationships in compression and hydraulic conductivity from inputting the data from the HyCoS simulation. Two laboratory simulations were conducted in order to verify the system involving the basic algorithm of the system and two major components, the software and hardware operation. The objectives of this process are divided into two major aspects. The first was to confirm whether the experimental equipment, such as the consolidometer and control and data acquisition device, maintained a stable operation status during the whole period of the consolidation test. In addition, verification was also carried out to determine whether the target control can actually be maintained on the specimen. The second objective was to confirm the reliability of the data obtained from the system HyCoS.     

On the freezing precipitation in korea and the basic schemes for its potential prediction

This study aims to improve the forecasting skill for freezing precipitation. A total of 102 freezing precipitation cases were collected in South and North Korea from 2001 onwards. Temperature fields on the ground and in the atmosphere, vertical temperature profiles, geopotential fields, thickness fields and their spatiotemporal variations, and their combinations using the predominant precipitation-type nomograms (P-type nomograms) were classified and investigated to determine whether or not these data could be used as predictors. Results show that 1) the combination of the thicknesses of 1000-850 hPa and 850-700 hPa is recommended for the P-type nomograms for Korea, which is different from that used in the United States in threshold values; 2) 35 out of 72 synoptic situations are possible conditions for freezing precipitation; and 3) 3 groups out of those 35 situations, i.e., the 1000 hPa warmfront group, the mid-level southerly category of 850 hPa, and the mid-layer warm type in the vertical temperature profile, show the greatest frequency. Freezing precipitation occurs only in a small part of a possible area. Therefore, despite the increasing observations in the year-on-year trend, only a few of the cases have been detected. The possibility of observation errors is also one of the biggest problems. Therefore, the need for new equipment, such as a freezing rain detector (FRAD), to detect the phenomenon automatically is required and proposed. A denser observing system of FRADs and an ultra-fine gridded numerical model are suggested as a solution for the prediction of freezing precipitation.     

Statistical downscaling for daily precipitation in Korea using combined PRISM,RCM, and quantile mapping: Part 1, methodology and evaluation in historical simulation

In this study, we present the Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM)-based Dynamic downscaling Error correction (PRIDE) model, which is suitable for complex topographies, such as the Korean peninsula. The PRIDE model is constructed by combining the PRISM module, the Regional Climate Model (RCM) anomaly, and quantile mapping (QM) to produce high-resolution (1 km) grid data at a daily time scale. The results show that the systematic bias of the RCM was significantly reduced by simply substituting the climatological observational seasonal cycle at a daily timescale for each grid point obtained from the PRISM. QM was then applied to correct additional systematic bias by constructing the transfer functions under the cumulative density function framework between the model and observation using six types of transfer functions. K-fold cross-validation of the PRIDE model shows that the number of modeled precipitation days is approximately 90~121% of the number of observed precipitation days for the five daily precipitation classes, indicating that the PRIDE model reasonably estimates the observational frequency of daily precipitation under a quantile framework. The relative Mean Absolute Error (MAE) is also discussed in the framework of the intensity of daily precipitation.