Effects of high-resolution land cover and topography on local circulations in two different coastal regions of Korea: a numerical modeling study

Abstract

The effects of high-resolution land cover (LC) and topography (TP) on coastal wind circulations were evaluated in two different coastal regions of Korea (i.e. a southwestern coast (SWC), including a fairly complex coastline and a number of islands, and an eastern coast (EC), including a simple coastline with high mountains) during spring 2007. These analyses were performed based on a numerical modeling approach, using data sets with different resolutions, such as the LC and TP from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS-LC and USGS-TP: a 900-m resolution), the LC from the Environmental Geographic Information System (EGIS-LC: a 90-m), and the TP from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM-TP: a 90-m). The combined effects of the LC and TP on the spatial distributions of the coastal winds in the SWC region during the day were somewhat higher than those of the EC region, mainly due to the daytime land surface warming or the extension of the coastal area resulting from changes in the LC. At night, the effects of the EC region were more apparent along the coastline and adjacent sea. From the correlation analyses, the effect of the LC on the vertical wind distributions on land during the day was higher in the SWC region than in the EC region and vice versa for the effect of the TP. In particular, large effects of the LC and TP occurred in the EC region at night and at sea due to the differences in the surface conditions and elevations resulting from the changes in the LC and TP, respectively. In addition, the circulation of coastal winds from the near surface to the upper levels occurred at a relatively high elevation in the EC region (about 1,500 m) relative to the SWC region (about 600 m).