Retrieval of High-Resolution Grid Type Visibility Data in South Korea Using Inverse Distance Weighting and Kriging

Fog can cause large-scale human and economic damages, including traffic systems and agriculture. So, Korea Meteorological Administration is operating about 290 visibility meters to improve the observation level of fog. However, it is still insufficient to detect very localized fog. In this study, high-resolution grid-type visibility data were retrieved from irregularly distributed visibility data across the country. To this end, three objective analysis techniques (Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), Ordinary Kriging (OK) and Universal Kriging (UK)) were used. To find the best method and parameters, sensitivity test was performed for the effective radius, power parameter and variogram model that affect the level of objective analysis. Also, the effect of data distribution characteristics (level of normality) on the performance level of objective analysis was evaluated. IDW showed a relatively high level of objective analysis in terms of bias, RMSE and correlation, and the performance is inversely proportional to the effective radius and power parameter. However, the two Krigings showed relatively low level of objective analysis, in particular, greatly weakened the variability of the variables, although the level of output was different depending on the variogram model used. As the level of objective analysis is greatly influenced by the distribution characteristics of data, power, and models used, care should be taken when selecting objective analysis techniques and parameters.