Wet deposition of pollutants and precipitation patterns classified by cluster analysis of 850 hPa geopotential height in South Korea

Synoptic meteorological conditions for precipitating systems over South Korea are characterized into several similar types using a clustering technique based on the K-mean principles with the daily mean 850 hPa grid pointed geopotential height in the spatial resolution of 5° × 5° data obtained from NCEP in the domain of 25° ∼ 50°N and 110° ∼ 140°E for five years from 1994 to 1998. The consecutive three-day gridded NCEP data with the precipitation event on the last day over South Korea are used for the cluster analysis. With the use of the precipitation chemistry monitored data at 8 sites in South Korea, wet depositions of SO₄^2-, NO₃^- and NH₄⁺ belonging to each cluster are examined to identify the deposition levels for each cluster. The result indicates that the present methodology is found to identify the deposition levels clearly and be used more practically in the field of acid rain study without heavy computational requirement.