Sensitivity of Snowfall Characteristics to Meteorological Conditions in the Yeongdong Region of Korea

This study investigates the characteristics of cold clouds and snowfall in both the Yeongdong coastal and mountainous regions under different meteorological conditions based on the integration of numerical modeling and three-hourly rawinsonde observations with snow crystal photographs for a snowfall event that occurred on 29?30 January 2016.We found that rimed particles predominantly observed turned into dendrite particles in the latter period of the episode when the 850 hPa temperature decreased at the coastal site,whereas the snow crystal habits at the mountainous site were largely needle or rimed needle.Rawinsonde soundings showed a well-defined,two-layered cloud structure along with distinctive wind-directional shear,and an inversion in the equivalent potential temperature above the low-level cloud layer.The first experiment with a decrease in lower-layer temperature showed that the low-level cloud thickness was reduced to less than 1.5 km,and the accumulated precipitation was decreased by 87%compared with the control experiment.The difference in precipitation amount between the single-layered experiment and control experiment(two-layered)was not so significant to attribute it to the effect of the seeder?feeder mechanism.The precipitation in the last experiment by weakening winddirectional shear was increased by 1.4 times greater than the control experiment specifically at the coastal site,with graupel particles accounting for the highest proportion(~62%).The current results would improve snowfall forecasts in complicated geographical environments such as Yeongdong in terms of snow crystal habit as well as snowfall amount in both time and space domains.     

New Discovery of the Early Cretaceous Volcanic Rocks on the Barton Peninsula, King George Island,Antarctica and Its Geological Significance

Ages determined with the 40Ar/39Ar isotopic system affirms the Early Cretaceous volcanic activity in the Barton Peninsula, King George Island, Antarctica. Two specimens of basaltic andesite collected from the lowermost volcanic sequence of the peninsula were irradiated and analyzed in different experiments, yielding an identical age spectrum, and two magmatic thermal events of the Early Cretaceous (120.4± 1.6 Ma, 119± 1 Ma) and Early Tertiary (53.1± 1.5 Ma, 52± 1 Ma) are distinguished. The former is interpreted to represent the primary cooling age of basaltic andesite, whereas the latter is the thermal reset age caused by the intrusion of granitic pluton. These new ages clearly indicate that volcanism was active during the Early Cretaceous on the Barton Peninsula and that intensive hydrothermal alteration and mineralization of Mesozoic volcanic rocks resulted from Tertiary magmatism.     

Precambrian crustal evolution in Rangrim Massif , Korean Peninsula

Petrological, chronological and geotectonic geological analysis of Precambrian metamorphic rock in Korean Peninsula shows that the remnants ( > 314 Ga) of continental nuclei crust were formed in the Paleo-archean in the Rangrim Massif. In the massif, the main formation ages of continental crust range from 3.2 Ga to 2.5 Ga, its important growing period was 2.8 - 2.5 Ga. The subsequent expansion period of the Rangrim Massif was 2.4 - 2.2 Ga. The division events occurred in 1.85 Ga and in the Late Paleoproterozoic－Early Mesoproterozoic, respectively. Since then the massif was relatively stable. However, the last division of the Rangrim Massif occurred at 793 Ma.     

Effect of the Bottom Topography on Tsunami Propagation in the East （Japan） Sea

A study of tsunami events in the East （Japan） Sea using continuous Galerkin finite element model, aiming at reproducing tsunami waves generated by underwater earthquakes in 1983 and 1993 respectively has been performed focusing on the geographic extent of a topographic feature in the East （Japan） Sea. Numerical models can be the proper tools to study the combined effects of realistic topography. Subsequently, using the FEM based two-dimensional model we have simulated the smoothed and flattened topographic effects by removal of Yamato Rise and seamounts for the cases of tthe 1983 Central region earthquake tsunami and the 1993 southwestern Hokkaido earthquake tsunami. The results have shown that there will be higher tsunamis along the eastern coasts of Korea in general except some areas, like Sokcho with removal of topographic highs, thus providing complicated bottom topography of the East （Japan） Sea as effective tsunami energy scattering.     

中国海-西太平洋莫霍面深度分布特征及其地质意义

中国海-西太平洋位于欧亚板块、印澳板块和太平洋板块的交汇处,构造运动剧烈,地质情况复杂,是认识板块运动、洋陆相互作用、物质交换和能量传递不可多得的窗口,而莫霍面深度对于研究壳幔结构以及深部动力过程有着重要的意义.本文使用最新的覆盖全球的重力和地形数据,收集了深地震测深、多道地震测深等剖面183条,数字化得到2982个控制点,使用带控制点的三维界面反演方法来约束反演过程,得到中国海-西太平洋莫霍面深度,由莫霍面形态分析可知大洋板块的俯冲和印澳板块与欧亚板块的碰撞对西太平洋边缘海的形成演化有着重要作用.结合地热、岩石圈厚度、地震活动等地质地球物理资料,分析得知研究区内各个海域莫霍深度和地壳性质的变化是处于不同构造演化阶段的表现.并在马里亚纳沟弧盆拟合一条重力2.5维剖面,结果表明热物质上涌导致了马里亚纳海槽处地幔密度减小,马里亚纳海槽以及帕里西维拉海盆到西马里亚纳海岭的下地壳高密度异常是由残留的岩浆岩引起的.     

Influence of Tropical Cyclone Landfalls on Spatiotemporal Variations in Typhoon Season Rainfall over South China

This study examined the impact of tropical cyclone (TC) landfalls on the spatiotemporal variations in the rainfall over South China for the period 1957–2005. The target region was selected to show the noteworthy contribution of TC landfalls to the total rainfall during the typhoon season (July–October). Two prevailing spatial variations in the rainfall were obtained from an EOF analysis. The first EOF mode displays singlesign variability over South China with an explained variance of 23.4%. The associated t...     

Characteristics and Nonlinear Growth of the Singular Vector Related to a Heavy Rainfall Case over the Korean Peninsula

In this study,singular vectors related to a heavy rainfall case over the Korean Peninsula were calculated using the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University-National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (MM5) adjoint modeling system.Tangent linear and adjoint models include moist physical processes,and a moist basic state and a moist total energy norm were used for the singular-vector calculations.The characteristics and nonlinear growth of the first singular vector were analyzed,focusing on the relationship between the basic state and the singular vector.The horizontal distribution of the initial singular vector was closely related to the baroclinicity index and the moisture availability of the basic state.The temperature-component energy at a lower level was dominant at the initial time,and the kinetic energy at upper levels became dominant at the final time in the energy profile of the singular vector.The nonlinear growth of the singular vector appropriately reflects the temporal variations in the basic state.The moisture-component energy at lower levels was dominant at earlier times,indicating continuous moisture transport in the basic state.There were a large amount of precipitation and corresponding latent heat release after that period because the continuous moisture transport created favorable conditions for both convective and nonconvective precipitation.The vertical propagation of the singular-vector energy was caused by precipitation and the corresponding latent heating in the basic state.     

Probabilistic Distribution of the Maximum Wave Heigh

A new method of treating maximum wave height as a random variable in reliability analysis of breakwater caissons is proposed. The maximum wave height is expressed as the significant wave height multiplied by the so-called wave height ratio. The proposed wave height ratio is a type of transfer function from the significant wave height to the maximum wave height. Under the condition of a breaking wave, the ratio is intrinsically nonlinear. Therefore, the probability density function for the variable cannot be easily defined. In this study, however, it can be derived from the relationship between the maximum and significant waves in a nonbreaking environment. Some examples are shown to validate the derived probability density function for the wave ratio parameter. By introducing the wave height ratio into reliability analysis of caisson breakwater, the maximum wave height can be used as an independent and primary random variable, which means that the risk of caisson failure during its lifetime can be evaluated realistically.     

Reconstruction of late Quaternary sea-level change in southwestern British Columbia from sediments in isolation basins

Bracketing ages on marine—freshwater transitions in isolation basins extending from sea level to 100 m elevation on Lasqueti Island, and data from shallow marine cores and outcrops on eastern Vancouver Island, constrain late Pleistocene and Holocene sea-level change in the central Strait of Georgia. Relative sea level fell from 150 m elevation to about —15 m from 14000 cal. yr BP to 11 500 cal. yr BP. Basins at higher elevations exhibit abrupt changes in diatom assemblages at the marine-freshwater transition. At lower elevations an intervening brackish phase suggests slower rates of uplift. Relative sea level rose to about +1 m about 9000 cal. yr BP to 8500 cal. yr BP, and then slowly fell to the modern datum. The mean rate of glacio-isostatic rebound in the first millennium after deglaciation was about 0.11 in a ^-1, similar to the peak rate at the centres of the former Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice complexes. The latter feature smooth, exponential-style declines in sea level up to the present day, whereas in the study area the uplift rate dropped to less than one-tenth of its initial value in only about 2500 years. Slower, more deeply seated isostatic recovery generated residual uplift rates of <0.01 m a^-1 in the early Holocene after the late-Pleistocene wasting of the Cordilleran ice sheet.     

Simulation of Storm Surge and Wave Due to Typhoon Isewan (5915)

An integrally coupled wave-tide-surge model was developed and then applied to the simulation of the wave-typhoon surge for the typhoon Isewan (typhoon Vera (5915)), which is the strongest typhoon that has struck Japan and caused incalculable damage. An integrally coupled tide-surge-wave model using identical and homogeneous meshes in an unstructured grid system was used to correctly resolve the physics of wave-circulation interaction in both models. All model components were validated independently. The storm surge and wave properties such as the surge height, the significant wave height, wave period and direction were reproduced reasonably under the meteorological forcing, which was reprocessed to be close to the observations. The resulting modeling system can be used extensively for the prediction of the storm surge and waves and the usual barotropic forecast.