HR: 1340h
AN: A43B-1144    [Abstracts]
TI: Climatological characteristics of tropical cyclones making landfall over the Korean Peninsula
AU: * Choi, K
EM: choiks@kma.go.kr
AF: METRI, 460-18,Shindaebang-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, 156-720, Korea, Republic of
AU: Kim, B
EM: bjkim@kma.go.kr
AF: METRI, 460-18,Shindaebang-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, 156-720, Korea, Republic of
AB: We investigated the climatological characteristics of Korean peninsula (KP) landfall tropical cyclones (TCs) during the period 1951-2004. Landfall frequency has increased since the late 1980s. Especially, that of TCs with a greater intensity than tropical storm (TS) has rapidly increased. The pattern of landfall changed from the middle or northern region of the west coast of the KP to the south coast of the KP. That is, the tracks of the landfalling TCs tend to shift southeastward in recent years. The recurving location has also tended to shift southeastward in recent years. Through analysis of the variations of the accumulate cyclone energy (ACE), central pressure at and after recurving, convective activity, and SST in the western North Pacific (WNP), the intensity of landfall TCs has been rapidly increasing on average since the late 1980s. These results are consistent with the fact that TCs causing the most serious economic damage in South Korea happened after the late 1980s. This is because the TCs that make landfall over the KP more often take the track to pass over the sea (e.g., East China Sea), which enables the TC to take more energy from the sea. The western North Pacific High (WNPH) has tended to shift eastward in recent years. This eastward shift of the WNPH is related to the southward advance of the upper-level trough at the mid-latitude and the eastward extension of subtropical monsoon westerlies. Therefore, all these changes related to KP-landfall TCs would be due to the eastward shift of the WNPH in recent years. The ENSO is known to considerably affect TC activity from various previous studies. The their common conclusion is that the main formation region of the TC moves southeastward, the TC recurves further eastward, and then the life span of the TC tends to be longer during the warm phase of ENSO. Meanwhile, in this study, the relationship between KP-landfall TC frequency and the ENSO was not investigated. This study focuses on the KP- landfall TCs and then the number of TCs to study is relatively not many. In a future study, a climatological analysis on TCs affected the KP will be made.
DE: 0312 Air/sea constituent fluxes (3339, 4504)
DE: 3339 Ocean/atmosphere interactions (0312, 4504)
DE: 4504 Air/sea interactions (0312, 3339)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting