Climate In Taiwan Research Articles

Carbon Pricing Policies for the Asia-Pacific Neighbors and the Carbon Fee Policy of Taiwan's Climate Change Response Act

Carbon Pricing Policies for the Asia-Pacific Neighbors and the Carbon Fee Policy of Taiwan's Climate Change Response Act

Taiwan's Climate Change Response Act Nurturing Climate Change and Sustainability Education

Taiwan's Climate Change Response Act Nurturing Climate Change and Sustainability Education

Lacustrine record of centennial- and millennial-scale rainfall variability of the East Asian summer monsoon during the last deglaciation: Multi-proxy evidence from Taiwan

Situated at the border between the Southeast Asian continent and the northwestern Pacific, Taiwan's climate is primarily influenced by the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) and episodic tropical cyclones formed in the western Pacific. The lake sediments in Taiwan thus potentially archive the information of typhoon events and past monsoon variability. A high-resolution multi-proxy (total carbon, mass accumulation rate of total carbon, weight percent of wood fragments, δ13C of the organic carbon, magnetic susceptibility, chemical weathering index) and well-dated lacustrine record from Dongyuan Lake (22°10′N, 120°50′E; 360m above sea level) in southern Taiwan was used to reconstruct centennial to millennial timescale EASM oscillations specifically for the transition from the last deglaciation to the Early Holocene (17–9ka BP). The temporal patterns of proxies on both timescales in our records broadly agree with those in the Greenland ice core, which shows enhanced EASM during the warm period and weakened monsoon during the cold period. Different from northern high-latitude climates, we found two phases in the Mystery Interval, opposite Bølling–Allerød (BA) trend with maximum monsoonal rainfall in the Allerød period and more gradual transition to Younger Dryas event in our record. Likely, other climate forcings beyond the North Atlantic climate jointly modulated the EASM. Changes of sea surface temperature in the western tropical Pacific also might have exerted synergistic control on EASM precipitation in Taiwan on the centennial timescale during the last deglaciation. In addition, several high sedimentation events accompanied by significant amounts of wood fragments were observed and coincide with the paleo-record of mass wasting events identified on various downstream floodplains in Taiwan. Since mass wasting processes were rainfall-driven and threshold-triggered, such coherence possibly indicated an intensification of typhoon activity during the early Holocene. More high-resolution lacustrine records are required to decipher the hydrological variation and climate dynamics that were co-influenced by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and typhoon activity in Southeast Asia.

Altitudinal and latitudinal dependence of future warming in Taiwan simulated by WRF nested with ECHAM5/MPIOM

ABSTRACTIt is difficult and inadequate to use a global model alone for projecting future climate changes in areas such as Taiwan, a complex geographic nature island, due to its coarse resolution. In this study, we have performed dynamic downscaling of Taiwan's climate in the recent past (1979–2003) and climate change projection for the near and distant future (2015–2039 and 2075–2099, respectively) by using the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model. The simulation is forced by the Max Plank Institute Hamburg, global model, ECHAM5/MPIOM. Simulation results showed close correlation between fine‐resolution downscaling by WRF nested with ECHAM5/MPIOM and the actual observation data for the period 1979–2003. Projection of future climate changes revealed both altitudinal and latitudinal variations in warming trend, with more significant temperature increase in mountain areas than in plain areas towards the end of the 21st century and more obvious warming in the north than in the south of Taiwan. The results obtained in this study can be applied to other regions of similar latitudes and with comparable relief.

Heat insulation solar glass and application on energy efficiency buildings

Building integrated photovoltaics are among the best methods for generating power using solar energy. To promote and respond to the concept of BIPVs, this study developed a type of multi-functional heat insulation solar glass (HISG) that differs from traditional transparent PV modules, providing functions such as heat insulation and self-cleaning in addition to power generation. This study also made thorough preparations for the safety of future HISG installation on curtain walls in large-scale buildings. Furthermore, this study provides a comprehensive discussion regarding the energy-saving performance of HISG and relevant practical applications. Two experimental houses were constructed, which independently employed HISG and single-layer tempered glass. Taiwan's climate was adopted as the environmental condition for the experiment, and the effects of HISG and single-layer tempered glass on indoor temperature variation and the energy consumed by air conditioners and heaters were explored. Related software was also employed to simulate, compare, and verify HISG efficacy.

A Study for the Time Effect of Asphalt Pavements on Suburban Roads

Taiwan's climate is marine tropical. The northern part of the island has a rainy season that lasts from January through late March during the northeast monsoon, and experiences hot, humid weather from June through September. Thus, road’s maintenance is a difficult issue due to its long-season rains as well as high groundwater levels. In the mean time, the current roads are generally weaker in most suburban areas due to those soft soil bases uncompacted in construction. Those aspects explain the low performance of suburban roads in northern Taiwan. Therefore, this research takes the Yilan county, located in the northeast part of the island and well-known as a rainy county, as a study area where major suburban roads are selected to take asphalt concrete specimens for testing. The major purpose is to investigate the time effect of asphalt pavements for those of specimens with a period time of three years. A total number of 329 asphalt concrete specimens are characterized as Class I specimens, 305 of which were taken in 2007, as well as Class II of 24 taken in 2010. First, as for the Class I specimens, the Indirect Tensile Strength test (ITS) is conducted, together with the Control Chart as a filter, and then the remaining 253 specimens come to the average ITS value of 15.55 kgf/cm2. Secondly, as for the Class II specimens of 24, the Film Stripping (FS) tests are conducted to obtain the Index of Retained Strength (IRS) values, from which the basis of ITS comparisons is found. Thus, the different average ITS value, 19.16% in three years, is obtained. The result also indicates that the annual reduction of ITS value for an area similar to the study area may be taken as approximately 11% (33.14/3 %) and 4.7% (13.98/3 %) for the conditions of high traffic flow and low traffic flow, respectively. It may also address the common effect of traffic and environment on moisture damage in asphalt pavements.

Simulation of the Taiwan climate using the Hadley Centre PRECIS regional climate modelling system: The 1979-1981 results

In this paper we describe the simulation of Taiwan's climate for the period 1979-1981 using the Hadley Centre PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impact Studies) regional climate modeling system. The PRECIS simulations of surface precipitation and temperature have been compared in detail with the Central Weather Bureau measurements, and also with outputs from the IPCC global climate models such as the HadCM3, the CCSR, and the NCEP 50-year reanalysis data. Our results show that the very complicated spatial patterns of surface rainfall as revealed from the measurements can only be reproduced using the PRECIS model. The inter-annual variability in rainfall has shown to be well reproduced by the PRECIS model. The PRECIS model also demonstrates a good capability in simulating the spatial distribution of surface temperature over the whole of Taiwan, especially over Taiwan's Central Mountain Range. Since the PRECIS simulations were produced in combination with the ERA-15 global model results, our results show that a good way forward in conducting regional climate modeling at the national level requires the use of both global climate models and high resolution regional climate models.

台湾製糖の設立

It is from 1900 onward that modern cane sugar manufacturing companies were founded in Japan, when Taiwan Sugar Manufacturing Corporation was established in Taiwan, then a Japanese colony. As early as 1865, the Satsuma clan introduced modern cane sugar manufacturing technology from Britain and Holland. Since the Meiji Restoration, though the Meiji government also transferred various kinds of modern sugar technologies from the West, and to some extent acquired mechanical engineering technology for beet sugar at Monbetsu Seitosho (beet sugar manufacturing company) in Hokkaido, cane sugar technology transfer was unsuccessful because sugar-cane cultivation was not very suitable for the Japanese climate. As a consequence of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, however, China was forced to cede Taiwan to Japan. Taiwan's climate was very suitable for sugar-cane cultivation.Since around 1899, the Government General of Taiwan and Mitsui Bussan formed a project to establish a modern cane sugar manufacturing company. They spent a mere two or three years to accomplish this project. This paper investigates the reasons for such a short time span between the project's inception and its accomplishment.