• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.433-444
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• 2014

Although the Radar-AWS Rainrate (RAR) calculation system operated by Korea Meteorological Administration estimated precipitation using 2-dimensional composite components of single polarization radars, this system has several limitations in estimating the precipitation accurately. To to overcome limitations of the RAR system, the Korea Meteorological Administration developed and operated the RMQ (Radar-based Multi-sensor Quantitative Precipitation Estimation) system, the improved version of NMQ (National Mosaic and Multi-sensor Quantitative Precipitation Estimation) system of NSSL (National Severe Storms Laboratory) for the Korean Peninsula. This study introduced the RMQ system domestically for the first time and verified the precipitation estimation performance of the RMQ system. The RMQ system consists of 4 main parts as the process of handling the single radar data, merging 3D reflectivity, QPE, and displaying result images. The first process (handling of the single radar data) has the pre-process of a radar data (transformation of data format and quality control), the production of a vertical profile of reflectivity and the correction of bright-band, and the conduction of hydrid scan reflectivity. The next process (merger of 3D reflectivity) produces the 3D composite reflectivity field after correcting the quality controlled single radar reflectivity. The QPE process classifies the precipitation types using multi-sensor information and estimates quantitative precipitation using several Z-R relationships which are proper for precipitation types. This process also corrects the precipitation using the AWS position with local gauge correction technique. The last process displays the final results transformed into images in the web-site. This study also estimated the accuracy of the RMQ system with five events in 2012 summer season and compared the results of the RAR (Radar-AWS Rainrate) and RMQ systems. The RMQ system ($2.36mm\;hr^{-1}$ in RMSE on average) is superior to the RAR system ($8.33mm\;hr^{-1}$ in RMSE) and improved by 73.25% in RMSE and 25.56% in correlation coefficient on average. The precipitation composite field images produced by the RMQ system are almost identical to the AWS (Automatic Weather Statioin) images. Therefore, the RMQ system has contributed to improve the accuracy of precipitation estimation using weather radars and operation of the RMQ system in the work field in future enables to cope with the extreme weather conditions actively.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2020.06a
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• pp.183-183
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• 2020

Accurate quantitative precipitation estimation plays an important role in hydrological modelling and prediction. Instantaneous quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) by utilizing the weather radar data is a great applicability for operational hydrology in a catchment. Previously, regression technique performed between reflectivity (Z) and rain intensity (R) is used commonly to obtain radar QPEs. A novel, recent approaching method which might be applied in hydrological area for QPE is Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Networks. LSTM networks is a development and evolution of Recurrent Neuron Networks (RNNs) method that overcomes the limited memory capacity of RNNs and allows learning of long-term input-output dependencies. The advantages of LSTM compare to RNN technique is proven by previous works. In this study, LSTM networks is used to estimate the quantitative precipitation from weather radar for an urban catchment in South Korea. Radar information and rain-gauge data are used to evaluate and verify the estimation. The estimation results figure out that LSTM approaching method shows the accuracy and outperformance compared to Z-R relationship method. This study gives us the high potential of LSTM and its applications in urban hydrology.

• Journal of Multimedia Information System
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.245-256
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• 2018

This study estimated rainfall information more effectively by image signals through the information system of weather radar. Based on this, we suggest the way to estimate quantitative precipitation utilizing overlapped observation area of radars. We used the overlapped observation range of ground hyetometer observation network and radar observation network which are dense in our country. We chose the southern coast where precipitation entered from seaside is quite frequent and used Sungsan radar installed in Jeju island and Gudoksan radar installed in the southern coast area. We used the rainy season data generated in 2010 as the precipitation data. As a result, we found a reflectivity bias between two radar located in different area and developed the new quantitative precipitation estimation method using the bias. Estimated radar rainfall from this method showed the apt radar rainfall estimate than the other results from conventional method at overall rainfall field.

• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.365-378
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• 2014

The limits of S-band dual-polarization radars in Korea are not reflected on the recent weather forecasts of Korea Meteorological Administration and furthermore, they are only utilized for rainfall estimations and hydrometeor classification researches. Therefore, this study applied four merging methods [SA (Simple Average), WA (Weighted Average), SSE (Sum of Squared Error), TV (Time-varying mergence)] to the QPE (Quantitative Precipitation Estimation) model [called RAR (Radar-AWS Rainfall) calculation system] using single-polarization radars and S-band dual-polarization radar in order to improve the accuracy of the rainfall estimation of the RAR calculation system. As a result, the merging results of the WA and SSE methods, which are assigned different weights due to the accuracy of the individual model, performed better than the popular merging method, the SA (Simple Average) method. In particular, the results of TVWA (Time-Varying WA) and TVSSE (Time-Varying SSE), which were weighted differently due to the time-varying model error and standard deviation, were superior to the WA and SSE. Among of all the merging methods, the accuracy of the TVWA merging results showed the best performance. Therefore, merging the rainfalls from the RAR calculation system and S-band dual-polarization radar using the merging method proposed by this study enables to improve the accuracy of the quantitative rainfall estimation of the RAR calculation system. Moreover, this study is worthy of the fundamental research on the active utilization of dual-polarization radar for weather forecasts.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2021.06a
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• pp.133-133
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• 2021

The performance of radar Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks in hydrological applications depends on either the quality of data or the three-dimensional CAPPI structure from the weather radar. While radar data quality is controlled and enhanced by the more and more modern radar systems, the effect of CAPPI structure still has not yet fully investigated. In this study, three typical and important types of CAPPI structure including inverse-pyramid, cubic of grids 3x3, cubic of grids 4x4 are investigated to evaluate the effect of CAPPI structures on the performance of radar QPE using LSTM networks. The investigation results figure out that the cubic of grids 4x4 of CAPPI structure shows the best performance in rainfall estimation using the LSTM networks approach. This study give us the precious experiences in radar QPE works applying LSTM networks approach in particular and deep-learning approach in general.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.112-121
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• 2017

This study proposed the quantitative precipitation estimation method using overlapped area in radar network. For this purpose, the dense rain gauges and radar network are used. As a result, we found a reflectivity bias between two radar located in different area and developed the new quantitative precipitation estimation method using the bias. Estimated radar rainfall from this method showed the apt radar rainfall estimate than the other results from conventional method at overall rainfall field.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.525-540
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• 2015

Spatial distribution of precipitation has been estimated based on the local gauge correction (LGC) with a fixed inverse distance weighting (IDW), which is not optimized in taking effective radius into account depending on the radar error. We developed an algorithm, improved local gauge correction (ILGC) which eliminates outlier in radar rainrate errors and optimize distance power for IDW. ILGC was statistically examined the hourly cumulated precipitation from weather for the heavy rain events. Adjusted radar rainfall from ILGC is improved to 50% compared with unadjusted radar rainfall. The accuracy of ILGC is higher to 7% than that of LGC, which resulted from a positive effect of the optimal algorithm on the adjustment of quantitative precipitation estimation from weather radar.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1430-1437
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• 2019

In this paper, we proposed a methodology for estimating rainfall intensity using a W-band FMCW automotive radar signal which is the core technology of autonomous driving car. By comparing and analyzing the results of rainfall and non-rainfall observation, we found that the reflection intensity of the automotive radar is changed with rainfall intensity. We could confirm the possibility of deriving the quantitative precipitation estimation using the methodology derived from this result. In addition it can be possible to develop a new paradigm of precipitation observation technique by observing various events together with the weather radar and the ground rainfall observation equipment.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.283-294
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• 2015

For urban flash flood simulation, we need the higher resolution radar rainfall than radar rainfall of KMA, which has 10 min time and 1km spatial resolution, because the area of subbasins is almost below $1km^2$. Moreover, we have to secure the high quantitative accuracy for considering the urban hydrological model that is sensitive to rainfall input. In this study, we developed the quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE), which has 250 m spatial resolution and high accuracy using KMA AWS and SK Planet stations with Mt. Gwangdeok radar data in Seoul area. As the results, the rainfall field using KMA AWS (QPE1) is showed high smoothing effect and the rainfall field using Mt. Gwangdeok radar is lower estimated than other rainfall fields. The rainfall field using KMA AWS and SK Planet (QPE2) and conditional merged rainfall field (QPE4) has high quantitative accuracy. In addition, they have small smoothed area and well displayed the spatial variation of rainfall distribution. In particular, the quantitative accuracy of QPE4 is slightly less than QPE2, but it has been simulated well the non-homogeneity of the spatial distribution of rainfall.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.46 no.8
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• pp.857-871
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• 2013

The interest in rainfall observation and forecasting using remote sensing method like RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) and satellite image is increased according to increased damage by rapid weather change like regional torrential rain and flash flood. In this study, the basin runoff was calculated using adaptive neuro-fuzzy technique, one of the data driven model and MAPLE (McGill Algorithm for Precipitation Nowcasting by Lagrangian Extrapolation) forecasted precipitation data as one of the input variables. The flood estimation method using neuro-fuzzy technique and RADAR forecasted precipitation data was evaluated. Six rainfall events occurred at flood season in 2010 and 2011 in Chungju Reservoir basin were used for the input data. The flood estimation results according to the rainfall data used as training, checking and testing data in the model setup process were compared. The 15 models were composed of combination of the input variables and the results according to change of clustering methods were compared and analysed. From this study was that using the relatively larger clustering radius and the biggest flood ever happened for training data showed the better flood estimation. The model using MAPLE forecasted precipitation data showed relatively better result at inflow estimation Chungju Reservoir.