Analysis of Long-term Variations of Sunshine Duration and Precipitation Intensity Using Surface Meteorological Data Observed in Seoul and Busan in Korea

In other to interpret the long-term variations of sunshine duration, cloud lifetime, and precipitation intensity observed in and around Seoul and Busan for the period from 1986 to 2005, aerosol indirect effect was employed and applied. For the identification of long-term trend of aerosol concentration, observed visibility and AOT of AERONET sunphotometer data were also used over the same regions. The result showed that the time series of visibility was decreased and those of AOT increased, especially trends were remarkable in 2000s. In both regions, occurrence frequencies of observed cloudiness (cloud amount = 6/10) and strong precipitation (rain rate > 0.5 mm hour-1) have been steadily increased while those of cloudiness (cloud amount > 7/10) and weak precipitation (rain rate = 0.2 mm hour-1) decreased. These results are corresponding to the trend of both visibility and AERONET data, implying the aerosol indirect effect that makes size of cloud droplet reduce, cloud life-time longer and precipitation efficiency decreased. Our findings demonstrate that, although these phenomena are not highly significant, weather and climate system over Korean urban area have been changed toward longer lifetime of small cloudiness and increasing precipitation intensity as a result of increased aerosol indirect effect.