HOLOCENE STORMS LANDING ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO CLIMATE FACTORS

The intensity of the storms increases gradually as the sea temperature rises with global warming. The climate factors related to this are various such as ENSO, North Pacific high, and westerly jet. The recent studies of beach sediments in the south and the west coast revealed storm records during the Holocene. Two shell-gravel layers formed during 1,900-2,300 yBP are observed at the upper part (7.2-7.7m msl) in the erosion scarp of the fore dune at Dasari, the middle of the west coast. We gained the information of paleo-stromsin dozens of cores from a paleo-back swamp on the coast of Gochang, south of the west coast, 70km south of Dasari. A lot of information from the cores suggests that several storms occurred during 7-8,000 yBP and 2-3,000 yBP. Five shell–gravel layers were formed between 2.2- 2.9 m msl on erosion face by storm-induced rip currents over the past 1300 years in Yeonjeon, the west southern coast of the Korean Peninsula. On the other hand, marine gravels mixed in the slop clasts more than 4 times during 1,800-600 yBP were observed in the scarp (6.4-7.4 m msl) of fan deposit in the Gwanpo-ri of the east southern coast.

The timing of these events often overlaps with the periods of the sea level rise due to the increase in solar radiation. As in the occurrence of the super typhoon Haiyan, the rise of seawater temperature is likely to affect the intensity of the storm as it becomes an energy source of the storm. However, the typhoon landing on the Korea, Japan and north China is known as a "recurving type" related to the occurrence of El Niño, but the path of storm landing on the peninsula is likely controlled by the strength of El Niño and other related climatic factors. We will present how the climate factors on the western part of the Pacific influence on typhoon paths toward the Korean Peninsula.