Diurnal variation of simulated 2007 summertime precipitation over South Korea in a real-time forecast model system

A real-time forecast (RTF) system using Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model version 2.2 is used to evaluate the diurnal variation of precipitation over South Korea in the summer (June to August) of 2007. The characteristics of the observed precipitation are also analyzed. The analysis and simulation period is divided into two sub-periods following the end of the changma, or East Asian monsoon, in 2007: Period_1 is from 1 June to 21 July, and Period_2 is from 22 July to 31 August. A 24-h precipitation cycle is observed over the entire period. The diurnal variation of precipitation over the South Korea shows that the nighttime maximum precipitation in Period_1 is affected by a largescale system; in contrast, the daytime maximum precipitation in Period_2 resulted from mesoscale convections is induced by thermal instability and moisture advection. The phases of the diurnal variation of simulated precipitation are consistent with those of the observed precipitation. The daytime rainfall amount of simulated precipitation in Period_2 is overestimated, and the convective rain process significantly affects the simulated total precipitation. The daytime overestimated precipitation is associated with overestimations of low-level temperature and moisture during the daytime in the model simulations as compared with the observations.     

Regional Distribution of Perceived Temperatures Estimated by the Human Heat Budget Model （the Klima-Michel Model） in South Korea

The regional distribution of perceived temperatures (PT) for 28 major weather stations in South Korea during the past 22 years (1983–2004) was investigated by employing a human heat budget model, the Klima-Michel model. The frequencies of a cold stress and a heat load by each region were compared. The sensitivity of PT in terms of the input of synoptic meteorological variables were successfully tested. Seogwipo in Jeju Island appears to be the most comfortable city in Korea. Busan also shows a high frequenc...     

Ternary forecast of heavy snowfall in the Honam area,Korea

The objective of this study is to improve the statistical modeling for the ternary forecast of heavy snowfall in the Honam area in Korea. The ternary forecast of heavy snowfall consists of one of three values, 0 for less than 50 mm, 1 for an advisory (50–150 mm), and 2 for a warning (more than 150 mm). For our study, the observed daily snow amounts and the numerical model outputs for 45 synoptic factors at 17 stations in the Honam area during 5 years (2001 to 2005) are used as observations and potential pre...     

Galaxy activity in merging binary galaxy clusters

We present the results of a study of galaxy activity in two merging binary clusters (A168 and A1750) using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data supplemented with the data in the literature. We have investigated the merger histories of A168 and A1750 by combining the results from a two-body dynamical model and X-ray data. In A168, two subclusters appear to have passed each other and to be coming together from the recent maximum separation. In A1750, two major subclusters appear to have started interaction and to be coming together for the first time. We find an enhanced concentration of the galaxies showing star formation (SF) or active galactic nuclei (AGN) activity in the region between two subclusters in A168, which were possibly triggered by the cluster merger. In A1750, we do not find any galaxies with SF/AGN activity in the region between two subclusters, indicating that two major subclusters are in the early stage of merging.     

In Situ Observations of Solar Wind Stream Interface Evolution

The heliocentric orbits of the two STEREO satellites are similar in radius and ecliptic latitude, with separation in longitude increasing by about 45° per year. This arrangement provides a unique opportunity to study the evolution of stream interfaces near 1 AU over time scales of hours to a few days, much less than the period of a Carrington rotation. Assuming nonevolving solar wind sources that corotate with the Sun, we calculated the expected time and longitude of arrival of stream interfaces at the Ahead observatory based on the in situ solar wind speeds measured at the Behind observatory. We find agreement to within 5° between the expected and actual arrival longitude until the spacecraft are separated by more than 20° in heliocentric inertial longitude. This corresponds to about one day between the measurement times. Much larger deviations, up to 25° in longitude, are observed after 20° separation. Some of the deviations can be explained by a latitude difference between the spacecraft, but other deviations most likely result from evolution of the source region. Both remote and in situ measurements show that changes at the source boundary can occur on a time scale much shorter than one solar rotation. In 32 of 41 cases, the interface was observed earlier than expected at STEREO/Ahead.     

Old stellar population synthesis： new age and mass estimates for Mayall Ⅱ = G1

Mayall Ⅱ = G1 is one of the most luminous globular clusters （GCs） in M31. Here, we determine its age and mass by comparing multicolor photometry with theoretical stellar population synthesis models. Based on far- and near-ultraviolet GALEX photometry, broad-band UBVRI, and infrared JHKs 2MASS data, we construct the most extensive spectral energy distribution of G 1 to date, spanning the wavelength range from 1538 to 20 000A. A quantitative comparison with a variety of simple stellar population （SSP） models yields a mean age which is consistent with G1 being among the oldest building blocks of M31 and having formed within ～1.7 Gyr after the Big Bang. Irrespective of the SSP model or stellar initial mass function adopted, the resulting mass estimates （of order 10^7M⊙） indicate that GI is one of the most massive GCs in the Local Group. However, we speculate that the cluster＇s exceptionally high mass suggests that it may not be a genuine GC. Our results also suggest that G1 may contain, on average, （1.65±0.63） × 10^2L⊙ far-ultraviolet-bright, hot, extreme horizontal-branch stars, depending on the adopted SSP model. In addition, we demonstrate that extensive multi-passband photometry coupled with SSP analysis enables one to obtain age estimates for old SSPs that have similar accuracies as those from integrated spectroscopy or resolved stellar photometry, provided that some of the free parameters can be constrained independently.