Seok-Geun Oh

Assessment of the RegCM4 over East Asia and future precipitation change adapted to the RCP scenarios

In this study, we investigated spatial and temporal changes in precipitation over the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) East Asia domain, for present (1986–2005) and future (2031–2050) periods using the Regional Climate Model version 4 (RegCM4). Future meteorology produced by the Hadley Center Global Environmental Model version 2 coupled with the Atmosphere–Ocean (HadGEM2-AO) following global climate change scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5) was used as meteorological boundary conditions for the RegCM4. Six subregions (South Korea, North China, South China, Japan, Mongolia, and India) in the CORDEX East Asia domain were considered for analysis. The RegCM4 simulated spatial distributions of precipitation over East Asia with a correlation coefficient of 0.7 against Climate Research Unit data. The simulation skills of its temporal variability varied based on geographical regions and seasons, showing relatively poorer performance (underestimation in rainfall amount) in summer than in winter, in general. The future climate simulations by the RegCM4 presented that the East Asian continental regions will be warmer and more humid, leading to increased precipitation amounts, especially in the summer. The summer precipitation amount was projected to increase by about 5%, on average, over the East Asian domain, 5−15% in most subregions, and even higher (44% and 24%) in the South Korean region for the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, respectively. It was also expected that heavy rainfall (> 50 mm/d) events may occur more frequently in the future possibly owing to meteorological changes that are favorable to convective heavy precipitation.

Development of New Ensemble Methods Based on the Performance Skills of Regional Climate Models over South Korea

AbstractIn this paper, the prediction skills of five ensemble methods for temperature and precipitation are discussed by considering 20 yr of simulation results (from 1989 to 2008) for four regional climate models (RCMs) driven by NCEP–Department of Energy and ECMWF Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) boundary conditions. The simulation domain is the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) for East Asia, and the number of grid points is 197 × 233 with a 50-km horizontal resolution. Three new performance-based ensemble averaging (PEA) methods are developed in this study using 1) bias, root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) and absolute correlation (PEA_BRC), RMSE and absolute correlation (PEA_RAC), and RMSE and original correlation (PEA_ROC). The other two ensemble methods are equal-weighted averaging (EWA) and multivariate linear regression (Mul_Reg). To derive the weighting coefficients and cross validate the prediction skills of the five ensemble methods, the authors considered 15-yr and 5-yr data, ...

Impact of lateral boundary conditions on precipitation and temperature extremes over South Korea in the CORDEX regional climate simulation using RegCM4

In this study, the impact of lateral boundary conditions (LBCs) on the simulation skills of the climate model RegCM4 for extreme climate events (ECEs) over South Korea are investigated using two sets of 20-yr (1989–2008) integration with two LBCs (ERA and R-2). The ECEs were defined by a percentile method and an absolute threshold method. In general, RegCM4 successfully reproduces the spatial distribution and the inter-annual variability (R > 0.76) of ECEs indices (precipitation and temperature extreme 5%) irrespective of LBCs. When driven by ERA, RegCM4 shows better simulation skill for ECEs (PR5%, TX5%, hot days, tropical nights, and wet days) than when driven by R-2. The ERA run simulates more than +7 mm day−1 and +1.1°C for PR5% and TX5% than those by the R-2 run, respectively. Although RegCM4’s simulation skills for the ECEs defined by absolute thresholds are significantly different according to LBCs, RegCM4 captured the interannual variability of frost days, hot days, tropical nights, and dry days well. However, the numbers of hot days and dry days are strongly underestimated and overestimated, respectively, compared to the observations, irrespective of LBCs. The large differences in the simulation skill of RegCM4 for ECEs over South Korea between two simulations can be caused by the differences between two LBCs, ERA and R-2. For the mean climate state, ERA simulates more humidity and warmer temperatures than the R-2, especially in the low-to-mid troposphere, resulting in a warmer and more humid troposphere especially at the central region of the model domain.

Projections of high resolution climate changes for South Korea using multiple-regional climate models based on four RCP scenarios. Part 1: surface air temperature

We projected surface air temperature changes over South Korea during the mid (2026-2050) and late (2076-2100) 21st century against the current climate (1981-2005) using the simulation results from five regional climate models (RCMs) driven by Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model, version 2, coupled with the Atmosphere- Ocean (HadGEM2-AO), and two ensemble methods (equal weighted averaging, weighted averaging based on Taylor’s skill score) under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios. In general, the five RCM ensembles captured the spatial and seasonal variations, and probability distribution of temperature over South Korea reasonably compared to observation. They particularly showed a good performance in simulating annual temperature range compared to HadGEM2-AO. In future simulation, the temperature over South Korea will increase significantly for all scenarios and seasons. Stronger warming trends are projected in the late 21st century than in the mid-21st century, in particular under RCP8.5. The five RCM ensembles projected that temperature changes for the mid/late 21st century relative to the current climate are +1.54°C/+1.92°C for RCP2.6, +1.68°C/+2.91°C for RCP4.5, +1.17°C/+3.11°C for RCP6.0, and +1.75°C/+4.73°C for RCP8.5. Compared to the temperature projection of HadGEM2-AO, the five RCM ensembles projected smaller increases in temperature for all RCP scenarios and seasons. The inter-RCM spread is proportional to the simulation period (i.e., larger in the late-21st than mid-21st century) and significantly greater (about four times) in winter than summer for all RCP scenarios. Therefore, the modeled predictions of temperature increases during the late 21st century, particularly for winter temperatures, should be used with caution.

Simulation Skills of RegCM4 for Regional Climate over CORDEX East Asia driven by HadGEM2-AO

In this study, 27-year (1979-2005) regional climate over the CORDEX East Asia domain was reproduced using a regional climate model, RegCM4, driven by HadGEM2-AO output, and the model`s simulation skill was evaluated in terms of surface air temperature and precipitation. The RegCM4 reasonably simulated the spatial distribution and interannual variability and seasonal variability of surface air temperature, while it had systematic biases in the simulation of precipitation. In particular, simulated rainband of East Asian summer monsoon was southward shifted below as compared with the observation, thereby, summer mean precipitation over South Korea was significantly underestimated. Simulated temperature from the RegCM4 driven by the HadGEM2-AO output was comparable to that driven by the reanalysis. However, the RegCM4 driven by the HadGEM2-AO had prominently poor skill in the simulation of precipitation. This can be associated with the distorted monsoon circulations in the driving data (i.e., HadGEM2-AO) such as southward shifted low-level southwesterly, which resulted in the erroneous evolution of East Asian summer monsoon simulated by RegCM4.

Impact of Boundary Conditions and Cumulus Parameterization Schemes on Regional Climate Simulation over South-Korea in the CORDEX-East Asia Domain Using the RegCM4 Model

In this study, four types of sensitivity experiments (EG, EE, NG, NE; E: ERA-Interim, N: NCEP/DOE2, G: Grell scheme, E: Emanuel scheme) were performed to evaluate the simulation skills of RegCM4 released in July 2010 over the CORDEX (COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment) East Asia domain based on the combinations of boundary conditions (BC: ERA-Interim, NCEP/DOE2) and the cumulus parameterization schemes (CPS: Grell, Emanuel) for the 1989. The surface air temperature and precipitation data observed by the Korea Meteorological Adminstration were used to validate the simulation results over South Korea. The RegCM4 well simulates the seasonal and spatial variations of temperature but it fails to capture the seasonal and spatial variations of precipitation without consideration of the BC and CPS. Especially the simulated summer precipitation amount is significantly less in EG, NG, and NE experiments. But the seasonal variation of precipitation including summer precipitation is relatively well simulated in the EE experiment. The EE experiment shows a better skill in the seasonal march of East Asia summer monsoon, distribution of precipitation intensity and frequency than other experiments. In general, the skills of RegCM4 for temperature and precipitation are better during winter than summer, and in Emanuel than Grell schemes. The simulation results are more impacted by cumulus parameterization schemes than boundary conditions.

Projections of high resolution climate changes for South Korea using multiple-regional climate models based on four RCP scenarios. Part 2: precipitation

Precipitation changes over South Korea were projected using five regional climate models (RCMs) with a horizontal resolution of 12.5 km for the mid and late 21st century (2026-2050, 2076- 2100) under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios against present precipitation (1981-2005). The simulation data of the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 2 coupled with the Atmosphere-Ocean (HadGEM2-AO) was used as boundary data of RCMs. In general, the RCMs well simulated the spatial and seasonal variations of present precipitation compared with observation and HadGEM2-AO. Equal Weighted Averaging without Bias Correction (EWA_NBC) significantly reduced the model biases to some extent, but systematic biases in results still remained. However, the Weighted Averaging based on Taylor’s skill score (WEA_Tay) showed a good statistical correction in terms of the spatial and seasonal variations, the magnitude of precipitation amount, and the probability density. In the mid-21st century, the spatial and interannual variabilities of precipitation over South Korea are projected to increase regardless of the RCP scenarios and seasons. However, the changes in area-averaged seasonal precipitation are not significant due to mixed changing patterns depending on locations. Whereas, in the late 21st century, the precipitation is projected to increase proportionally to the changes of net radiative forcing. Under RCP8.5, WEA_Tay projects the precipitation to be increased by about +19.1, +20.5, +33.3% for annual, summer and winter precipitation at 1-5% significance levels, respectively. In addition, the probability of strong precipitation (≥ 15 mm d-1) is also projected to increase significantly, particularly in WEA_Tay under RCP8.5.

Regional Climate Simulations over East-Asia by using SNURCM and WRF Forced by HadGEM2-AO

In this study, the reproducibility of the simulated current climate by using two regional climate models, such as Seoul National University Regional Climate Model (SNURCM) and Weather Resuearch and Forecasting (WRF), is evaluated in advance to produce the standard regional climate scenario of future climate. Within the evaluation framework of a COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX), 28-year-long (1978-2005) regional climate simulation was conducted by using the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model (HadGEM2-AO) global simulation data of the National Institute of Meteorological Research (NIMR) as a lateral boundary forcing. The simulated annual surface temperatures were in good agreement with the observation; the spatial correlation coefficients between each model and observation were over 0.98. The cold bias, however, were shown over the northern boundary in the both simulated results. In evaluation of the simulated precipitation, the skill was reasonable and good. The spatial correlation coefficients for the precipitation over the land area were 0.85 and 0.79 in SNURCM and WRF, respectively. It is noted that two regional climate models (RCMs) have different characteristics for the distribution of precipitation over equatorial and midlatitude areas. SNURCM shows better distribution of the simulated precipitation associated with the East Asia summer monsoon in the mid-latitude areas, but WRF shows better in the equatorial areas in comparison to each other. The simulated precipitation is overestimated in summer season (JJA) rather than in spring season (MAM), whereas the spatial distribution of the precipitation in spring season corresponds to the observation better than in summer season. Also the RCMs were capable of reproducing the annual variability of the maximum amount and its timing in July, in which the skills over the inland area were in better agreement with the observation than over the maritime area. The simulated regional climates, however, have the limitation to represent the number of days for extremely hot temperature and heavy rainfall over South Korea.

Comparison of projection skills of deterministic ensemble methods using pseudo-simulation data generated from multivariate Gaussian distribution

The projection skills of five ensemble methods were analyzed according to simulation skills, training period, and ensemble members, using 198 sets of pseudo-simulation data (PSD) produced by random number generation assuming the simulated temperature of regional climate models. The PSD sets were classified into 18 categories according to the relative magnitude of bias, variance ratio, and correlation coefficient, where each category had 11 sets (including 1 truth set) with 50 samples. The ensemble methods used were as follows: equal weighted averaging without bias correction (EWA_NBC), EWA with bias correction (EWA_WBC), weighted ensemble averaging based on root mean square errors and correlation (WEA_RAC), WEA based on the Taylor score (WEA_Tay), and multivariate linear regression (Mul_Reg). The projection skills of the ensemble methods improved generally as compared with the best member for each category. However, their projection skills are significantly affected by the simulation skills of the ensemble member. The weighted ensemble methods showed better projection skills than non-weighted methods, in particular, for the PSD categories having systematic biases and various correlation coefficients. The EWA_NBC showed considerably lower projection skills than the other methods, in particular, for the PSD categories with systematic biases. Although Mul_Reg showed relatively good skills, it showed strong sensitivity to the PSD categories, training periods, and number of members. On the other hand, the WEA_Tay and WEA_RAC showed relatively superior skills in both the accuracy and reliability for all the sensitivity experiments. This indicates that WEA_Tay and WEA_RAC are applicable even for simulation data with systematic biases, a short training period, and a small number of ensemble members.

On the Relation Between Cloud-to-Ground Lightning and Rainfall During 2006 and 2007 Summer Cases

Environmental Prediction Co. Ltd., Daejeon 302-831, KoreaAbstract: A relationship between cloud-to-ground lightning and rainfall was investigated by using the two-years (2006-2007) summer lightning data and the automatic weather stations (AWSs) data of the Korea Meteorological Administration.The negative lightning occurred at the core of highly concentrated convection, which is often accompanied with heavyrains. Whereas most positive lightning occurred at the anvil cloud with low density and light rains. The rainfall intensityis strongest when the negative and positive lightning occurred concurrently, and one with lightning is much stronger thanthat without lightning. A portion of the positive lightning of the total lightning was less than 10% during summerseasons, and the lightning without rains was about 34%. The rain rate was strongly correlated with the negative flash rate,and the correlation coefficients varied between 0.87 and 0.94 according to the co-location radius (5-15 km) of AWSs.Most of the lightning occurred 10 minutes before and/or concurrently occurred with rains. A portion of the convectiverainfalls of the total rainfalls was at least 20% when we define the rainfalls with lightning as convective. The convectiverainfall was greater during August than in June and July. In general, the portion of convective rainfalls showed amaximum diurnal variation during late afternoon as in the rains and lightning.Keywords: lightning, rainfall, frequency, intensity, convective rainfall요약: 본 연구에서는 2006-2007년 여름(6-8월)동안의 기상청 낙뢰 관측자료와 자동관측소 강우량 자료를 사용하여 여름철 낙뢰와 강우의 관계에 대해 분석하였다. 대부분의 부극성 낙뢰는 대류가 활발한 중심에 집중되어 발생하고 낙뢰빈도가 높고 강한 강우를 동반하였다. 반면 대부분의 정극성 낙뢰는 구름의 가장자리 또는 모루운에서 발생하고 낙뢰빈도는 낮으며, 약한 강우를 동반하였다. 일반적으로 강우강도는 부극성과 정극성이 함께 발생했을 경우 가장 강하고 부극성 낙뢰, 정극성 낙뢰, 그리고 낙뢰가 발생하지 않은 순으로 나타나고 있다. 여름철 전체 낙뢰 중 정극성 낙뢰의 비율은 평균 10% 이하이며 강우를 유발하지 않는 낙뢰의 비율은 평균 34%이다. 강우강도는 특히 부극성 낙뢰빈도와 높은양의 상관을 보였고, 낙뢰는 강우와 동시에 발생하거나 약 10분정도 선행하는 경향을 보였다. 낙뢰를 동반한 강우를 대류성 강우로 정의하여 분석한 결과 우리나라 여름철 강우 중 적어도 20% 이상은 대류성 강우이며 6, 7월보다는 8월에대류성 강우가 많이 발생하고 있다. 또한 강우 및 낙뢰와 같이 대류성 강우의 비율도 오후에 최대치를 보이는 일변동을 보인다.주요어: 낙뢰, 강우, 빈도, 강도, 대류성 강우