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PRECIPITATION PATTERN CHANGE
OF SOUTH KOREA
Due to climate change, hydrometeorological factors, such as temperature, precipitation, etc have changed in fast rate worldwidely. Many researches show that size and frequency of hydrologic extremes are increasing. For recent ten years (1999 ~ 2008) in South Korea, total 385 times of localized torrential rain with 100 mm per day occurred, which is 1.7 times more than those in 70~ 80's. In 2011, from July to the middle of August, continuous rainspell and localized torential downpour caused 1285.3 mm of accumulated precipitation. Also heavy flood resulted from torrential rain in seoul metropolitan area caused large property damage and casualty. Some events are shown below.
On July 27th, 2011 mountain WOO-MYUN in Seo-cho dong was destroyed because of more than 300 mm of rain per day. Due to this heavy localized torrential rain, 16 people died, and great amount of property was damaged. Pictures above clearly show damages to the town, and the video clip shows terrific view of the landslide.
By looking at several phenomena including unpredictable accidents, the importance of observing precipitation pattern change has emerged as key to meteorologists. Precipitation pattern change can be a good index to notice climate change due to global warming. And it brings changes to the structure of society, business, and agriculture. Also, humans can correspond appropriately to sudden precipitation change. Let's continue on to other tabs to take a deeper look into precipitation pattern change.
On July 6th, 2012, in Gunpo 74 mm of rain fell down per hour. However, in Osan, which is only 20 km apart from Gunpo, only 2 mm of rain fell down per hour. Scientists call this phenomenon “Local Torrential Rainfall”. As hot air formed due to heat of the surface rises, it meets with cold air came down from the North. Then it suddenly forms thick cloud with radius of minimum 5 km. Thus in a very small area with cloud, it rains severely, while regions near them, but not under the cloud don't have rain. This heavy rainfall is difficult to predict using long-term model, because cloud causing rainfall is so small. But at the same time, because it causes heavy rainfall, it heavily destroys earth.
Landslide of Mountain Woo-Myun (2011. 07. 27)
Local Torrential Rainfall in Gunpo (2012.07.06)
Why do we need to focus on precipitation pattern change?
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