The Impacts of Socioeconomic Development and Climate Change on Severe Weather Catastrophe Losses: Mid-Atlantic Region (MAR) and the U.S.

One strand of research relates the magnitude of severe weather disasters to climatic and human development factors; another highlights dramatic growth in catastrophe losses. However, there have been few attempts to put the two strands together. Here we use an explicit modeling framework to determine the contribution of climate variability relative to human factors in reported catastrophe losses. We then examine how future climate change can be expected to affect losses from natural disasters. Simultaneous regression models are constructed from three equations in which the dependent variables are U.S. flood loss, U.S. hurricane loss and U.S. catastrophe loss. Then two kinds of simulation under two climate change scenarios explore how climate change would affect losses. The climate change scenarios respectively project 13.5% and 21.5% increases in annual precipitation. The first simulation increases only the mean value of annual precipitation; the second simulation assumes that the mean and standard deviation of annual precipitation change in the same proportion. Results show that the growth in reported losses from weather-related natural disasters is due mainly to three socioeconomic factors: inflation, population growth and growth in per capita real wealth. However, weather variables such as precipitation and the number of hurricanes per period also clearly affect losses. The three stage least squares (3SLS) simultaneous equation model shows that a 1% increase in annual precipitation would enlarge catastrophe loss by as much as 2.8%. These findings are suggestive as planning signals to decision makers.     

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.     

Arsenic and metal contamination of water resources from mining wastes in Korea

 Water resources near a gold-mine waste site were studied for the distribution and contents of contaminants, and their behavior in the surface and groundwater systems. Arsenic, cadmium, and manganese were identified with levels exceeding the drinking water guidelines of WHO (World Health Organization), and their distribution depended upon the differences in source materials and in spatial pH variations. Originating from arsenopyrite, concentrations of dissolved arsenic were controlled by sorption with amorphous iron (Fe(OH)₃) and carbonate minerals. Cadmium and manganese were derived from the mineral phase including sphalerite (ZnS), otavite (CdCO₃), and rhodochrosite (MnCO₃); their concentrations in water resources were limited by the solubility of mineral phases. All of these processes are significantly pH-dependent, implying that a small decline in pH could result in a drastic increase in contaminant concentrations and become a pollution threat to the water resources of the Gubong area. Received: 13 December 1999 · Accepted: 21 March 2000     

Climate responses in the tropical pacific associated with atlantic warming in recent decades

In this study, we investigated the impact of the Atlantic decadal-scale sea surface temperature (SST) variation on the tropical Pacific climate using a Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM). During the recent decade from 2000 to 2010 when the Atlantic SST has sharply increased, observations have shown that the strong easterly and increased precipitation anomalies appeared over the western-central Pacific. It is different from the conventional Gilltype response in which the easterly due to heating in the Atlantic is expected to be extended to the Indian Ocean. We have found that the warm pool over the western Pacific plays an important role in enhancing the atmospheric response to the Atlantic SST forcing in the Pacific basin. Simplified Aqua planet GCM experiments showed that the central location of the anomalous easterly over the Pacific produced by the Atlantic SST forcing highly depends on the location of the idealized warm pool. The reason for this is because the moisture feedback is strongest over the warm pool region, which leads to additional local anomalous convergence, and therefore the easterly produced by the Atlantic SST forcing is enhanced only over the east of the warm pool region.     

Strategy for the meteorological and environmental airborne observations over the Korean Peninsula

Aircraft campaigns for the meteorological and environmental research have been conducted in regional and global scales. The aircraft is increasingly considered as one of the best platforms to get the atmospheric three-dimensional information, especially over sea. We discuss the airborne observation plan and payloads designed for the aircraft campaigns over the Korean Peninsula. The main goals of the campaigns are to (i) conduct precipitation (snow) enhancement experiments with observations of the microphysical properties of clouds, dominantly in winter, (ii) monitor the severe weather generally in summer, (iii) characterize the climate change composition and the outflow of pollution from the Asian continent of the troposphere over the Korean Peninsula generally in spring or fall, and (iv) validate satellite and ground-based remote measurements of tropospheric composition generally in spring or fall.     

Error assessment of climate variables for FAO-56 reference evapotranspiration

Meteorological stations, which measure all the required meteorological parameters to estimate reference evapotranspiration (ET_o) using the Food and Agriculture Organization Penman?CMonteith (FAO56-PM) method, are limited in Korea. In this study, alternative methods were applied to estimate these parameters, and the applicability of these methods for ET_o estimation was evaluated by comparison with a complete meteorological dataset collected in 2008 in Korea. Despite differences between the estimation and observation of radiation and wind speed, the comparison of ET_o showed small differences [i.e., mean bias error (MBE) varying ?0.22 to 0.25?mm?day^?1 and root-mean-square-error (RMSE) varying 0.06?C0.50?mm?day^?1]. The estimated vapor pressure differed considerably from the observed, resulting in a larger discrepancy in ET_o (i.e., MBE of ?0.50?mm?day^?1 and RMSE of 0.60?C0.73?mm?day^?1). Estimated ET_o showed different sensitivity to variations of the meteorological parameters??in order of vapor pressure?>?wind speed?>?radiation. It is clear that the FAO56-PM method is applicable for reasonable ET_o estimation at a daily time scale especially in data-limited regions in Korea.     

Monitoring of organic contaminants in sediments from the Korean coast: Spatial distribution and temporal trends (2001-2007)

Spatial and temporal trends of organic contaminants in sediments along the Korean coast were estimated through a nationwide environmental monitoring program from 2001 to 2007. The concentrations of organic contaminants in sediments along the Korean coast were relatively low or moderate compared with foreign studies. The mean detection frequencies of organic contaminants during the seven years were highest for PAHs and PCDD/Fs, followed by PCBs, DDTs, TBT and HCHs in decreasing order. Based on published sediment quality guidelines, the ecological risks of persistent organic pollutants in sediments along the Korean coast were low, despite exceedances of the ERL at 2-6 sites for DDTs, and the TEL at 9-18 sites for PCDD/Fs. Nonparametric tests to assess temporal trends revealed significant decreasing trends for PCBs and PCDD/Fs at four and three sites, respectively (p < 0.05). These results reflect the effects of regulations on the use of those contaminants.