Simultaneous measurements of ku- and ka-band sea surface cross sections by an airborne Radar

The dual-frequency Airborne Precipitation Radar-2 (APR-2) was deployed during the Wakasa Bay Experiment in 2003, for validation of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS. Besides providing extensive observations of diverse precipitating systems, this Ku-(13.4 GHz) and Ka-band (35.6 GHz) cross-track scanning radar measured sea surface backscatter simultaneously. While the characteristics of the normalized sea surface cross section /spl sigma//sup 0/ at Ku-band are well understood and widely published, the existing experimental data concerning /spl sigma//sup 0/ at Ka-band are scarce and results are inconsistent. In this letter, the Ku/Ka-band /spl sigma//sup 0/ measurements collected by APR-2, together with the estimated uncertainties, are discussed. In general, the measured /spl sigma//sup 0/ at Ka-band at around 10/spl deg/ incidence angle appears to be close to that at Ku-band /spl sigma//sup 0/, and Ka-band exhibits a nonnegligible difference in wind dependence with respect to Ku-band for moderate to high winds.     

Changes and development plans in the mountain villages of South Korea: Comparison of the first and second national surveys

Owing to the geographic disadvantages of mountain villages, the social, cultural, and economic conditions of mountain villagers are inferior to those of urban dwellers in South Korea. Thus, in 1995, the The government of South Korea launched a mountain village development support program to promote agriculture and forestry, balance national land development, and preserve cultural heritage. The program was effectively implemented, improving the income, population size, and living conditions of villagers in addition to setting up a system for stable project implementation. However, concerns were raised about long-term development planning, the creation and marketing of specialty brands, facility management/operation, and follow-up support. The government conducted surveys of mountain villagers in 2003 and 2014, obtaining basic data to address these issues. This study evaluates the outcomes of these two surveys, suggesting areas requiring focused action, concentrating on village development projects, forest resource distribution and use, demographic trends, the economy, exchange with urban areas, green tourism, and master planning. We find that despite growth in the forest labor force, forest ownership is diminishing in terms of the number and scale of holdings. Consequently, it is necessary to commercialize forest resources, establish favorable settlement conditions, and expand government support for village-run projects. In addition, systematic forest management for older tree age classes would benefit the public and provide assets for future mountain village development. Our results are expected to provide baseline information for the establishment and efficient implementation of mountain village development policy.     

Potential increase of flood hazards in Korea due to global warming from a high-resolution regional climate simulation

Because of the importance of the changes in the hydrologic cycle, accurate assessment of precipitation characteristics is essential to understand the impact of climate change due to global warming. This study investigates the changes in extreme precipitation with sub-daily and daily temporal scales. For a fine-scale climate change projection focusing on the Korean peninsula (20 km), we performed the dynamical downscaling of the global climate scenario covering the period 1971?C2100 (130-year) simulated by the Max-Planck-Institute global climate model, ECHAM5, using the latest version of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) regional climate model, RegCM3. While annual mean precipitation exhibits a pronounced interannual and interdecadal variability, with the increasing or decreasing trend repeated during a certain period, extreme precipitation with sub-daily and daily temporal scales estimated from the generalized extreme value distribution shows consistently increasing pattern. The return period of extreme precipitation is significantly reduced despite the decreased annual mean precipitation at the end of 21^st century. The decreased relatively weak precipitation is responsible for the decreased total precipitation, so that the decreased total precipitation does not necessarily mean less heavy precipitation. Climate change projection based on the ECHAM5-RegCM3 model chain clearly shows the effect of global warming in increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation, even without significantly increased total precipitation, which implies an increased risk for flood hazards.     

Multi-decadal scenario simulation over Korea using a one-way double-nested regional climate model system. Part 1: recent climate simulation (1971–2000)

We present an analysis of a high resolution multi-decadal simulation of recent climate (1971–2000) over the Korean Peninsula with a regional climate model (RegCM3) using a one-way double-nested system. Mean climate state as well as frequency and intensity of extreme climate events are investigated at various temporal and spatial scales, with focus on surface air temperature and precipitation. The mother intermediate resolution model domain encompasses the eastern regions of Asia at 60 km grid spacing while the high resolution nested domain covers the Korean Peninsula at 20 km grid spacing. The simulation spans the 30-year period of January 1971 through December 2000, and initial and lateral boundary conditions for the mother domain are provided from ECHO-G fields based on the IPCC SRES B2 scenario. The model shows a good performance in reproducing the climatological and regional characteristics of surface variables, although some persistent biases are present. Main results are as follows: (1) The RegCM3 successfully simulates the fine-scale structure of the temperature field due to topographic forcing but it shows a systematic cold bias mostly due to an underestimate of maximum temperature. (2) The frequency distribution of simulated daily mean temperature agrees well with the observed seasonal and spatial patterns. In the summer season, however, daily variability is underestimated. (3) The RegCM3 simulation adequately captures the seasonal evolution of precipitation associated to the East Asia monsoon. In particular, the simulated winter precipitation is remarkably good, clearly showing typical precipitation patterns that occur on the northwestern areas of Japan during the winter monsoon. Although summer precipitation is underestimated, area-averaged time series of precipitation over Korea show that the RegCM3 agrees better with observations than ECHO-G both in terms of seasonal evolution and precipitation amounts. (4) Heavy rainfall phenomena exceeding 300 mm/day are simulated only at the high resolution of the double nested domain. (5) The model shows a tendency to overestimate the number of precipitation days and to underestimate the precipitation intensities. (6) A CSEOF analysis reveals that the model captures the strength of the annual cycle and the surface warming trend throughout the simulated period.     

Meteorological responses to Mt. Baekdu volcanic eruption over east asia in an offline global climate-chemistry model: A pilot study

We examine the meteorological responses due to the probable eruption of Mt. Baekdu using an off-line Climate-Chemistry model that is composed of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Climate Atmosphere Model version 3 (CAM3) and a global chemistry transport model (GEOS-Chem). Using the aerosol dataset from the GEOS-Chem driven by GEOS-5 meteorology, experiment and control simulations of the climate model are performed and their meteorological differences between the two simulations are analyzed. The magnitudes of volcanic eruption and column injection height were presumably set to 1/200 of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption and 9 km, respectively. Significant temperature drop in the lower troposphere (850 hPa), which is mainly due to a direct effect of prescribed volcanic aerosols from Mt. Baekdu, has been simulated up to about ?4 K. The upper atmosphere (150 hPa) right above the volcano, however, shows significant warming due to the absorption of the infrared radiation by volcanic aerosols. As a result of the volcanic eruption in the climate model, wave-like patterns are shown in both the geopotential height and horizontal wind. The changes in the lower atmospheric temperature are well associated with the modification of the atmospheric circulation through the hydrostatic balance. In spite of limitations in our current simulations due to several underlying assumptions, our results could give a clue to understanding the meteorological impacts from Mt. Baekdu eruptions that are currently attracting considerable public attention.     

Robust intensification of hydroclimatic intensity over East Asia from multi-model ensemble regional projections

This study assesses the hydroclimatic response to global warming over East Asia from multi-model ensemble regional projections. Four different regional climate models (RCMs), namely, WRF, HadGEM3-RA, RegCM4, and GRIMs, are used for dynamical downscaling of the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 2–Atmosphere and Ocean (HadGEM2-AO) global projections forced by the representative concentration pathway (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios. Annual mean precipitation, hydroclimatic intensity index (HY-INT), and wet and dry extreme indices are analyzed to identify the robust behavior of hydroclimatic change in response to enhanced emission scenarios using high-resolution (12.5 km) and long-term (1981–2100) daily precipitation. Ensemble projections exhibit increased hydroclimatic intensity across the entire domain and under both the RCP scenarios. However, a geographical pattern with predominantly intensified HY-INT does not fully emerge in the mean precipitation change because HY-INT is tied to the changes in the precipitation characteristics rather than to those in the precipitation amount. All projections show an enhancement of high intensity precipitation and a reduction of weak intensity precipitation, which lead to a possible shift in hydroclimatic regime prone to an increase of both wet and dry extremes. In general, projections forced by the RCP8.5 scenario tend to produce a much stronger response than do those by the RCP4.5 scenario. However, the temperature increase under the RCP4.5 scenario is sufficiently large to induce significant changes in hydroclimatic intensity, despite the relatively uncertain change in mean precipitation. Likewise, the forced responses of HY-INT and the two extreme indices are more robust than that of mean precipitation, in terms of the statistical significance and model agreement.

     

Seasonal characteristics of the near-surface circulation in the northern South China Sea obtained from satellite-tracked drifters

The surface circulation of northern South China Sea (hereafter SCS) for the period 1987–2005 was studied using the data of more than 500 satellite-tracked drifters and wind data from QuikSCAT. The mean flow directions in the northern SCS except the Luzon Strait (hereafter LS) during the periods October~March was southwestward, and April~September northeastward. A strong northwestward intrusion of the Kuroshio through the LS appears during the October~March period of northeasterly wind, but the intrusion became weak between April and September. When the strong intrusion occurred, the eddy kinetic energy (EKE) in the LS was 388 cm²/s² which was almost 2 times higher than that during the weak-intrusion season. The volume transport of the Kuroshio in the east of the Philippines shows an inverse relationship to that of the LS. There is a six-month phase shift between the two seasonal phenomena. The volume transport in the east of the Philippines shows its peak sis-month earlier faster than that of the LS. The strong Kuroshio intrusion is found to be also related to the seasonal variation of the wind stress curl generated by the northeasterly wind. The negative wind stress curl in the northern part of LS induces an anticyclonic flow, while the positive wind stress curl in the southern part of LS induces a cyclonic flow. The northwestward Kuroshio intrusion in the northern part of LS happened with larger negative wind stress curl, while the westward intrusion along 20.5°N in the center of the LS occurred with weaker negative wind stress curl.     

A Method for Reinforcing the Ground Adjacent to the Footing Using Micropiles

The in-situ application of micropiles has gradually increased in limited spaces of downtown areas because the micropile has various advantages, such as low vibration and noise and compact machine size. In this study, model tests were carried out to understand the reinforcement effect induced by the mechanical interaction between the micropile and soil. The micropiles were installed in the soil adjacent to footings. Factors such as reinforced range (W) with piles, spacing (S) between piles, the installed angle (θ) of piles, and pile length (L) were considered variables in the tests. The reinforced angle (θ) was a more critical factor than the others for restraining the settlement and increasing soil stiffness in the model test results. The reinforcement effect rapidly increased around the reinforced range (W) of 2B (B: the width of a footing), the reinforced angle (θ) of 45 ～ 75°, and the pile length (L) of 3B. Based on the results of the experimental analyses, the purpose of this study is to improve the reinforcement efficiency of micropiles by recommending the most effective pattern and design method for installing them.     

Above-ground biomass estimation of tuberous bulrush (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Bolboschoenus planiculmis</Emphasis>) in mudflats using remotely sensed multispectral image

We present a multivariate regression approach for mapping the spatial distribution of above-ground biomass (AGB) of B. planiculmis using field data and coincident moderate spatial resolution satellite imagery. A total of 232 ground sample plots were used to estimate the biomass distribution in the Nakdong River estuary. Field data were overlain and correlated with digital values from an atmospherically corrected multispectral image (Landsat 8). The AGB distribution was derived using empirical models trained with field-measured AGB data. The final regression model for AGB estimation was composed using the OLI3, OLI4, and OLI7 spectral bands. The Pearson correlation between the observed and predicted biomass was significant (R = 0.84, p < 0.0001). OLI3 made the largest contribution to the final model (relative coefficient value: 53.4%) and revealed a negative relationship with the AGB biomass. The total distribution area of B. planiculmis was 1,922,979 m². Based on the model estimation, the total AGB had a dry weight (DW) of approximately 298.2 tons. The distribution of high biomass stands (> 200 kg DW/900 m²) constituted approximately 23.91% of the total vegetated area. Our findings suggest the expandability of remotely sensed products to understand the distribution pattern of estuarine plant productivity at the landscape level.