On the elevation dependency of present-day climate and future change over korea from a high resolution regional climate simulation

This study investigates the elevation dependency of the present-day climate and future climate change in temperature and precipitationoverkorea. adynamicallydownscaled fine-scale climate simulation(20km) shows reasonable agreement withtwo typesof observations maintainedbythekorea meteorological administration. the modelexactly captures the strong relationship between the elevation and local climatology as seen in observed temperature and precipitation patterns. the behavior of the elevation dependencyshown by the present-day climate simulation is also appeared in the climate change signal. the warming amplification is highly correlated with elevation. the warming is more pronounced at higher elevations than at lower elevations during winter,and maximum warming occurs at minimum temperature,showing an asymmetric response between minimum and maximum temperature. anoticeable differential rate of winter warming in response to the elevation can be explained by the snow-albedo feedback. precipitation and snow changes also show the relevant topographical modulation under global warming. this study clearly demonstrates the importance of a refined topographyfor improving the accuracyof the local climatology and suitably reflecting the altitudinal distribution. © 2011,meteorological society of japan.