Detection of ENSO-influence on the monthly precipitation in South Korea
Author
Summary, in English
During the latest several decades, there has been considerable interest in revealing the relationship between El Nino-southern oscillation (ENSO) and hydro-meteorological variables. The oscillation is characterized by a simple index, the southern oscillation index (SOI). However, thus far, there is little evidence for the influence of ENSO in Korea and Japan. The influence of ENSO has also been studied in South Korea, but the estimated results are still qualitative and show an indirect relationship between ENSO and hydro-meteorological variables. In this study we use simple approaches to reveal the quantitative and direct correlation between SOI and the monthly precipitation at five stations distributed over South Korea. The monthly precipitation data are transformed into nonexceedance probability time series because the data cannot be normally distributed by applying the usual transformations. The SOI is classified into five categories according to their values. Additionally, to detect the nonlinear relationship between categorized SOI and nonexceedance probability of the monthly precipitation, we use Kendall's tau, a nonparametric test. Significant correlations between the categorized SOI and the transformed precipitation are detected. Generally, the monthly precipitation is influenced by a La Nina event with a lag time of 4 months for southern coastal areas and a lag time of 5 months for middle to high regions in South Korea.
Department/s
Publishing year
2005
Language
English
Pages
4081-4092
Publication/Series
Hydrological Processes
Volume
19
Issue
20
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Topic
- Water Engineering
Keywords
- categorization
- southern oscillation index (SOI)
- probability
- nonexceedance
- Kendall's iota
- South Korea
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1099-1085