The Korea Meteorological Administration () (KMA) is the national meteorological service of the

Republic of Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its east ...

. The service started in 1904 joining the

WMO The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internat ...

in 1956.

Numerical Weather Prediction Numerical weather prediction (NWP) uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. Though first attempted in the 1920s, it was not until the advent of computer simulation in th ...

is performed using the

Unified Model The Unified Model is a numerical weather prediction and climate modeling software suite originally developed by the United Kingdom Met Office, and now both used and further developed by many weather-forecasting agencies around the world. The Unif ...

software suite.

History

The current Administration was established in 1990. Temporary observatories set up in 1904 in Busan, Incheon, Mokpo and elsewhere were precursors to the current KMA. The Central Meteorological Office (CMO) was established in August 1949. In April 1978, CMO was renamed the Korea Meteorological Service(KMS). In 1999, the Administration introduced a meteorological

supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...

for forecasting. As of November 2021, supercomputers ''Guru'' and ''Maru'' ranked 27th and 28th respectively

in the world ''In the World'' is an album by jazz saxophonist Clifford Jordan which was recorded in 1969 and released on the Strata-East label in 1972. The album was rereleased on CD as part of ''The Complete Clifford Jordan Strata-East Sessions'' by Mosaic ...

. In 2010, the KMA launched South Korea’s first geostationary meteorological satellite, the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS), also known as Chollian. Chollian started its official operation in 2011. The Seoul and Busan observatories were recognized as Centennial Observing Stations in 2017 by the World Meteorological Administration (WMO). In 2019, the Administration completed developing its own numerical weather prediction model. The Administration’s forecasting skills and techniques are considered to be world-class.

Weather Radar Project

In 2013, US-based

Enterprise Electronics Corporation Enterprise Electronics Corporation or EEC is an Alabama-based commercial weather radar system company, founded in 1971. EEC has designed and manufactured over 1,000 weather radar systems to over 90 countries. EEC offers S Band, C Band, and X B ...

(EEC) out of Enterprise, Alabama won a contract to deliver 11 S-band

Klystron A klystron is a specialized linear-beam vacuum tube, invented in 1937 by American electrical engineers Russell and Sigurd Varian,Pond, Norman H. "The Tube Guys". Russ Cochran, 2008 p.31-40 which is used as an amplifier for high radio frequen ...

Dual-Polarization Doppler

Weather radar Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern weather radars are mostly puls ...

systems to the KMA. The radars will be installed across the country as a means of providing for complete weather radar coverage over the entire country.

Locations

The headquarters is in

Daebang-dong Daebang-dong is a '' dong'', neighbourhood of Dongjak-gu in Seoul, South Korea. History See also *Administrative divisions of South Korea South Korea is made up of 17 first-tier administrative divisions: 6 metropolitan cities (''gwang ...

Dongjak District Dongjak District (Dongjak-gu) is one of the 25 '' gu'' that make up the city of Seoul, South Korea. Its name was derived from the Dongjaegi Naruteo Ferry, on the Han River which borders the district to the north. It was the 17th ''gu'' create ...

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

. Co-working organs include mainly 5 categories: regional office of KMA,

weather stations A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...

, observatories and Joint office for Meteorological observation. Order of Ministry of Environment(Revised in 2008.10.22)- KMA and organization set-up

References

External links

KMA homepage

KMA on www.top500.org

The National Institute of Meteorological Research
{{Authority control Governmental meteorological agencies in Asia