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Climate monitoring
and prediction in Korea
Man-Ki Lee, Administrator, Korea Meteorological Administration
R
ecently, many parts of the world have experienced serious
natural disasters associated with unusual climate, result-
ing in a significant impact on their economy and social
life. Korea has also suffered from natural disasters such as
severe yellow dust storms in spring, torrential rain during a
rainy season, typhoons in summer, and heavy snowfall in
winter. During the past ten years (1995-2004), total property
damage caused by natural disasters in Korea reached USD18
billion and the number of victims was around 1,300. In partic-
ular, the total amount of damage in 2002 and 2006 reached
USD6 billion and USD2 billion respectively. Reports suggest
that the occurrence of extreme weather and climate events
(drought, flooding, cold surge and heat wave) may become
more frequent in association with global warming.
In order to improve understanding of the realities of the global
environment, and to cope with global and regional climate change,
the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) has operated a
climate change monitoring system since 1992, based on the World
Meteorological Organization Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO-
GAW) programme. Under the system, a Korea Global
Atmosphere Watch Observatory (KGAWO) was set up
in Anmyeon-do in 1996, located on the western coast
of the Korean peninsula, and formally registered in
May 1998 as WMO-GAW Station number 47132.
Elements monitored at KGAWO in Anmyeon-do are
greenhouse gases, reactive gases, precipitation
chemistries, airborne particulates, atmospheric radia-
tion, aerosols, ozone and ultraviolet radiation based on
regulation of the WMO-GAW programme. Data
measured at KGAWO is being used nationally and
abroad as well. It has been used for analysis of back-
ground atmosphere change over the Korean peninsula
and for producing high-quality data to meet WMO
standards through the exchange of data with World
Data Center (WDC) and technical cooperation.
In addition to the Anmyeon-do KGAWO, KMA oper-
ates two ozone, four ultraviolet radiation and three acid
rain measurement observatories over the peninsula;
one ozone station in Seoul (GAW/GO3OS station No.
252 by Dobson spectrophotometer) in cooperation
with Yeonsei University and the other ozone station in
Pohang (GAW/GO3OS station No. 332 by Brewer spec-
trophotometer). In an effort to expand its GAW
network, KMA appointed Kwangju Science and
Technology Institute’s Advanced Environmental
Monitoring Research Center as a new cooperative
observatory in December 2006. In order to densely
monitor global and local environmental change, KMA
is going to establish the second KGAWO in Gosan, Jeju
island, which is recognized as one of the appropriate
places over the Korean peninsula for monitoring the
characteristics of the East Asia atmosphere. The second
Gosan KGAWO will implement measurements of
greenhouse gas, atmospheric radiation and precipita-
tion chemistry, and it will be used as an international
cooperation special campaign site for Asia
Characterization Experiment-Asia (ACE-Asia) and
Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC).
There has been growing recognition that the
improvement in climate monitoring and prediction
techniques could be one of the means to cope with and
minimize those natural disasters and negative social
and economic impacts. In this regard, KMA embarked
on a eight-year long-term project from 1999 to set up
APCC multi-model ensemble system
APCC has processed and disseminated operational climate prediction information
and products based on the MME technique to all member economies
Source: APEC Climate Center
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