Winter precipitation variability over Korean Peninsula associated with ENSO

In this study, winter precipitation variability associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over the Korean Peninsula was investigated using a 5-pentad running mean data because significant correlation pattern cannot be revealed using seasonal-mean data. It was found a considerably significant positive correlation between Niño3 sea-surface temperature and precipitation during early winter (from Mid-November to early-December), when the correlation coefficient is close to 0.8 in early-December; the correlation is distinctively weakened during late winter. It is demonstrated that such sudden intraseasonal change in relation to ENSO is associated with the presence of anticyclonic flow over the Kuroshio extension region (Kuroshio anticyclone). In early winter, there is strong southerly wind over the Korean Peninsula, which is induced by the Philippine Sea anticyclone and Kuroshio anticyclone. However, in January, although the Philippine Sea anticyclone develops further, the Kuroshio anticyclone suddenly disappears; as a result, the impact of ENSO is considerably weakened over the Korean Peninsula. These results indicate that the Kuroshio anticyclone during El Niño peak phase plays a critical role by strongly affecting Northeast Asia climate, including the Korean Peninsula. In addition, it is also found that there are distinctive interdecadal changes of the relationship between ENSO and precipitation over the Korean Peninsula. In particular, the strong correlation in early winter is clearer in the recent 30 years than that in the previous period of 1950–1979.     

Tephrostratigraphy and paleo-environmental implications of Late Quaternary sediments and interstitial water in the western Ulleung Basin, East/Japan Sea

Two piston cores, collected from the western Ulleung Basin of the East/Japan Sea, were used to investigate the Late Quaternary tephrostratigraphy, lithology, and mineralogy of the sediments, as well as the elemental composition of both sediments and interstitial water, and their paleo-environmental implications. The cores show two lapilli tephra layers and one rhyolitic ash layer at the boundaries between sedimentary lithofacies units I, II, and III. These layers can be correlated with the well-known Ulleung-Oki (ca. 9.3 ka; boundary of units I/II), Ulleung-Yamato (ca. 25–33 ka), and Aira-Tanzawa (ca. 25.1 ka; boundary of units II/III) layers, respectively. These data suggest that the cores cover the period from the middle stage of marine isotope stage (MIS) 3 to the Holocene. In each core, a so-called dark laminated mud (DLM) layer in unit II commonly has high contents of Si and Al, suggesting that the DLM layer generally contains significant amounts of fine-grained silicates and/or aluminosilicates. In addition, these DLM layers are enriched in Fe relative to Mn, iron being predominantly bound in framboidal pyrite. The size distribution of pyrite in the DLM layers suggests that these have formed under anoxic (euxinic) conditions at times of reduced water circulation in the basin during sea-level lowstand (euxinic environment). The C/N ratios [5–12] suggest that sedimentary organic matter in the cores is predominantly of marine origin. Total organic carbon (TOC) contents increased shortly before Termination I. This could have been caused by an increased flux of marine organic matter in association with sea-level rise. The C and S values of units II and III (Late Pleistocene sediments; C: <2.0%; S: 0.5–2.1%) suggest a more euxinic environment than that of unit I (Holocene sediments; C: 1.0–3.5%; S: <1.0%). Concentrations of SO₄^2– in the interstitial water decrease with increasing burial depth, whereas CH₄ concentrations show the reverse trend. Therefore, it seems that sulfate reduction, probably related to microbial activity, predominates in the upper core sections (<5 m), shifting to methanogenesis in the lower core sections.     

Time-domain geoacoustic inversion of high-frequency chirp signal from a simple towed system

An inversion method using a towed system consisting of a source and two receivers is presented. High-frequency chirp signals that have been emitted from the source are received after multiple penetrations and reflections from the shallow water sub-bottom structure and are processed for geoacoustical parameter estimation. The data are processed such that a good resolution and robustness is achieved via matched filtering, which requires information about the source signal. The inversion is formulated as an optimization problem, which maximizes the cost function defined as a normalized correlation between the measured and modeled signals directly in the time domain. The very fast simulated reannealing optimization method is applied to the global search problem. The modeled time signal is obtained using a ray approach. An experiment was carried out in the Mediterranean Sea using a towed source and receiver system. The inversion method is applied to the experimental data and results are found to be consistent with previous frequency-domain analyses using measurements from a towed horizontal array of receivers and measurements on a vertical array.     

Shear-zone deformation and bulk strain in granite-greenstone terrain of the Western Superior Province,Canada

The later Archaean history of the granite-greenstone terrain of the western Superior Province in Manitoba was marked by the development of numerous shear zones with varying orientation and sense of movement. Data are presented on the orientation, width and displacement of 15 shear zones in a 61,000 km² area east of Lake Winnipeg. By making simplifying assumptions, estimates are made of the orientation of the maximum compressive stress (N-S) and the bulk shortening strain caused by the shear zone displacements (39–45%).The estimates of shear zone displacement strain are compared with estimates of bulk strain obtained by analysing the granite-greenstone shape pattern over a large area of the western Superior Province, again making simplifying assumptions. As expected, the contribution of the more ductile greenstones to the bulk strain is proportionately greater. A value of around 40% is indicated for the bulk shortening strain.Estimates of mean shear strain obtained both from shear zone displacement/width measurements and from strain profiles show a wide range in values from around 10 in some narrow zones to around 1 in very wide zones.     

Evidence against the core/cover interpretation of the southern sector of the Menderes Massif,west Turkey

The Menderes Massif, in western Anatolia, has been described as a lithological succession comprising a basal ‘Precambrian gneissic core of sedimentary origin’ overlain in sequence by ‘Palaeozoic schist’ and ‘Mesozoic-Cenozoic marble’ forming the envelope. The boundary between core and schist envelope was interpreted as a major unconformity, the ‘Supra-Pan-African unconformity’. By contrast, our field observations and geochemical data show that around the southern side of Besparmak Mountain, north of Selimiye (Milas), the protoliths of highly deformed, mylonitized augen gneisses are granitoid rocks intrusive into the adjacent Palaeozoic metasedimentary schists. The field relationships indicate the age of intrusion to be younger than late Permian and there is no evidence for the existence of either an exposed Precambrian basement or the ‘Supra-Pan-African unconformity’ in this sector of the Menderes Massif.     

A simulation of Asian dust events in March 2010 by using the ADAM2 model

Asian dust events occurred in Asia during March 2010 were simulated using the Asian Dust Aerosol Model 2 (ADAM2). The performance of the model for simulations of surface dust concentrations and dust event occurrences was tested at several monitoring sites located in the dust source region and the downstream region of Korea. The observed and modeled dust event occurrences at each monitoring site were defined with the hourly observed and modeled dust concentrations that were used to evaluate the performance of the model by constructing a contingency table for the dust event occurrence. It was found that the model simulated quite well the starting and ending times of dust events with their peak dust concentrations for most dust events occurred both in the dust source region and the downstream region of Korea. However, the model failed to simulate a few dust events observed in both regions mainly due to the inaccurate simulations of the meteorological fields. Inaccurate simulations of wind speeds have caused for the model to simulate dust events poorly in the dust source region whereas poor simulations of precipitation of the fifth-generation mesoscale model (MM5) model have led to miss dust events in the downstream region of Korea. The contingency table made with the hourly data for the dust event occurrence made it possible to evaluate the ADAM2 model for the simulation of the dust event occurrence. It was found that the model has the probabilistic simulation capability for dust events of about 78% with the hit rate of more than 83% and the false alarm rate of about 27% for the dust events occurred during March in 2010. The probabilistic capability of the model could be much improved by improving the meteorological model (MM5 model).