Urbanization Effect on the Observed Change in Mean Monthly Temperatures between 1951-1980 and 1971-2000 in Korea

Gridded temperature data are necessary to run ecological models at regional scales for climate impact studies and have been generated by spatially interpolating measured values at synoptic stations. Because there are few synoptic stations with long-term records in rural areas in Korea, data from urban stations have been used for this purpose. Due to the overlapping of the rapid urbanization-industrialization period with the global warming era in Korea, climate data from these urbanized areas might be contaminated with urban heat island effect. This study was conducted to differentiate urbanization and regional climate change effects on apparent temperature change. Monthly averages of daily minimum, maximum, and mean temperature at 14 synoptic stations were prepared for 1951-1980 (past normal) and 1971-2000 (current normal) periods, respectively.Differences in two temperature normals were regressed to the logarithm of the population increase at 14 corresponding cities from 1966 to 1985. The regression equations were used to determine potential effects of urbanization and to extract the net contribution of regional climate change to the apparent temperature change. According to the model calculation, urbanization effect was common in all months except April. Up to 0.5° warming of nighttime temperature was induced by urbanization in the current normal period compared with the past normal period. There was little effect of regional climate change on local warming in the warm season (May through November). The cool season was warmed mainly by regionally increased daytime temperature. The results could be used to remove urbanization effects embedded in raw data, helping restore unbiased rural temperature trends in South Korea.     

Viscous fluid characteristics of liquefied soils and behavior of piles subjected to flow of liquefied soils

Lateral movement of sloping ground due to flow liquefaction has caused many pile foundations to fail, especially those in ports and harbor structures. Several researchers have found and verified that the behavior of liquefied soils can be simulated appropriately by modeling the liquefied soils as viscous fluid. In this study, the influence of the lateral movement of liquefied sloping ground on the behavior of piles was analyzed on the assumption that the flow of liquefied soils can be treated as viscous fluid flow. Sinking ball tests and pulling bar tests were performed to measure the viscosity of liquefied Jumoonjin sand. Then, the behavior of a single pile installed in liquefiable infinite slopes consisting of sand was investigated by numerical analyses. The liquefied sand behaved as non-Newtonian fluid, whose viscosity decreased with increasing shear strain rate. Furthermore, the flow of liquefied soils had a crucial effect on the stability of piles installed in the sloping ground.