• Atmosphere
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.279-285
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• 2012

The weighing precipitation gauge with auto-empting capability was developed in the R&D project organized by the Research Agency for Climate Science (RACS) and supported by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). This project was initiated in line with the KMA's plan executed since 2010 to introduce the weighing precipitation gauges partly into of their Automatic Weather Station (AWS) network in order to upgrade the quality of precipitation data. The innovative feature of this research is that the auto-empting in weighing precipitation gauge is realized by abrupt rotation of receiving container. The prototype was tested in compliance with the relevant standards of KMA. The results of performance test on rainfall measurement in laboratory verified that the accuracies for 20 mm and 100 mm reference rainfall amount were 0.1 mm and 0.4 mm, respectively in both conditions of auto-empting and no-empting. During the rotation of container for auto-empting, the data was extrapolated smoothly by applying the same precipitation intensity of the previous 10 sec. Consequently, it was found that the auto-empting precipitation gauge developed in this research is quite enough to be used for the operational purpose of accurate measurement with 0.1 mm resolution, regardless of the precipitation intensity.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.269-282
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• 2019

While it is important to obtain the accurate information on snowfall data due to the increase in damage caused by the heavy snowfall in the winter season, it is not easy to observe the snowfall quantitatively. Recently, snow measurements using a weighing precipitation gauge have been carried out, but there is a problem that high snowfall intensity results in low accuracy. Also, the observed snowfall data are sensitive depending on wind speed, temperature, and humidity. In this study, a new process of quality control for snow water equivalent (SWE) data of the weighing precipitation gauge were proposed to cover the low accuracy of snow data and maximize the data utilization. Snowfall data (SWE) observed by Pluvio, Parsivel, snow-depth meter using laser or ultrasonic, and rainfall gauge in Cloud Physics Observation Site (CPOS) were compared and analyzed. Applying the QC algorithm including the use of number of hydrometeor particles as reference, the increased SWE per the unit time was determined and the data noise was removed and marked by flag. The SWE data converted by the number concentration of hydrometeor particles are tested as a method to restore the QC-removed data, and show good agreement with those of the weighing precipitation gauge, though requiring more case studies. The three events data for heavy snowfall disaster in Pyeongchang area was analyzed. The SWE data with improved quality was showed a good correlation with the eye-measured data ($R^2$ > 0.73).

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.514-523
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• 2021

Using the precipitation data observed at the Gochang Standard Weather Observatory (GSWO) during the winter seasons from 2014 to 2016, we analyzed the precipitation characteristics of the winter observation environment. For this study, we used four different types of precipitation gauges, i.e., No Shield (NS), Single Alter (SA), Double Fence Intercomparison Reference (DFIR), and Pit Gauge (PG). We analyzed the data from each to find differences in the accumulated precipitation, characteristics of the precipitation type, and the catch efficiency according to the wind speed based on the DFIR. We then classified these into three precipitation types, i.e., rain, mixed precipitation, and snow, according to temperature data from Gochang's Automated Synoptic Observing System (ASOS). We considered the DFIR to be the standard precipitation gauge for our analysis and the cumulative winter precipitation recorded by each other gauge compared to the DFIR data in the following order (from the most to least similar): SA, NS, and PG. As such, we find that the SA gauge is the most accurate when compared to the standard precipitation gauge used (DFIR), and the PG system is inappropriate for winter observations.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.334-334
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• 2022

Improvement of old-fashioned rain gauge systems for automatic, timely, continuous, and accurate precipitation observation is highly essential for weather/climate prediction and natural hazards early warning, since the occurrence frequency and intensity of heavy and extreme precipitation events (especially floods) are recently getting more increase and severe worldwide due to climate change. Although rain gauge accuracy of 0.1 mm is recommended by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the traditional rain gauges in both weighting and tipping bucket types are often unable to meet that demand due to several existing technical limitations together with higher production and maintenance costs. Therefore, we aim to introduce a newly developed and cost-effective hybrid rain gauge system at 0.1 mm accuracy that combines advantages of weighting and tipping bucket types for continuous, automatic, and accurate precipitation observation, where the errors from long-term load cells and external environmental sources (e.g., winds) can be removed via an automatic drainage system and artificial intelligence-based data quality control procedure. Our rain gauge system consists of an instrument unit for measuring precipitation, a communication unit for transmitting and receiving measured precipitation signals, and a database unit for storing, processing, and analyzing precipitation data. This newly developed rain gauge was designed according to the weather instrument criteria, where precipitation amounts filled into the tipping bucket are measured considering the receiver's diameter, the maximum measurement of precipitation, drainage time, and the conductivity marking. Moreover, it is also designed to transmit the measured precipitation data stored in the PCB through RS232, RS485, and TCP/IP, together with connecting to the data logger to enable data collection and analysis based on user needs. Preliminary results from a comparison with an existing 1.0-mm tipping bucket rain gauge indicated that our developed rain gauge has an excellent performance in continuous precipitation observation with higher measurement accuracy, more correct precipitation days observed (120 days), and a lower error of roughly 27 mm occurred during the measurement period.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.935-942
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• 2018

Precipitation has a wide range of applications, such as the management and operation of dams and rivers, supply of dranking water for urban and industrial complex, farming and fishing, forest greening, and safety management. In order to prepare for disasters and to obtain economical effects in case of flood damage, it is necessary to measure accurate precipitation. In this study, we carried out the characteristics tests for various types of rainfall gauge using integrated verification system, which can analyze the performance of collective type rainfall gauge. The uncertainty for tipping bucket rain gauge was 0.0041 mm, where weight type and surface tension type was 0.0045 mm and 0.0039 mm respectively. Therefore, the uncertainty according to the type and characteristics of the precipitation system is not significantly different. The uncertainty is also influenced greatly by the resolution.