Sung-Soo Park
Seoul National University · Environmental Science
About the Lab
Professor Sung-Soo Park's research lab specializes in atmospheric modeling and cloud physics, with a focus on improving the representation of convection, cloud microphysics, and atmospheric turbulence in climate models. The lab develops advanced parameterization schemes—such as UNICON and enhanced shallow cumulus schemes—that enable more accurate simulation of subgrid-scale atmospheric processes without relying on traditional quasi-equilibrium assumptions. Their work emphasizes process-based modeling of moist convection, cloud-radiation-turbulence interactions, and the simulation of climate change under various emissions scenarios using state-of-the-art general circulation models. The lab's contributions are central to advancing the fidelity of global climate models, particularly in simulating tropical and marine cloud systems and their climatic impacts.
Research Overview
Research Output Trend
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Selected Papers
15Abstract This paper describes a new version of the University of Washington shallow cumulus parameterization. The new version includes improved treatments of lateral mixing rates into cumulus updrafts, the evaporation of precipitation and of the interaction of cumuli with the underlying subcloud layer, and a treatment of the convective inhibition-based mass-flux closure that is more numerically stable and is suitable for the long time steps of global climate models. The paper also documents its
Abstract This paper provides a description of the integrated representation for the cloud processes in the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5). CAM5 cloud parameterizations add the following unique characteristics to previous versions: 1) a cloud macrophysical structure with horizontally nonoverlapped deep cumulus, shallow cumulus, and stratus in each grid layer, where each of which has its own cloud fraction, and mass and number concentrations for cloud liquid droplets and ice crystals
Abstract The author develops a unified convection scheme (UNICON) that parameterizes relative (i.e., with respect to the grid-mean vertical flow) subgrid vertical transport by nonlocal asymmetric turbulent eddies. UNICON is a process-based model of subgrid convective plumes and mesoscale organized flow without relying on any quasi-equilibrium assumptions such as convective available potential energy (CAPE) or convective inhibition (CIN) closures. In combination with a relative subgrid vertical t
Abstract. Stratospheric ozone and water vapour are key components of the Earth system, and past and future changes to both have important impacts on global and regional climate. Here, we evaluate long-term changes in these species from the pre-industrial period (1850) to the end of the 21st century in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) models under a range of future emissions scenarios. There is good agreement between the CMIP multi-model mean and observations for total column
Abstract As a contribution to phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), the global climate simulated by an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM), the Seoul National University Atmosphere Model version 0 with a Unified Convection Scheme (SAM0-UNICON), is compared with observation and climates simulated by the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) and Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1), on which SAM0-UNICON is based. Both SAM0-UNICON and CESM1 successful
Abstract The surface heat flux response to underlying sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (the surface heat flux feedback) is estimated using 42 yr (1956–97) of ship-derived monthly turbulent heat fluxes and 17 yr (1984–2000) of satellite-derived monthly radiative fluxes over the global oceans for individual seasons. Net surface heat flux feedback is generally negative (i.e., a damping of the underlying SST anomalies) over the global oceans, although there is considerable geographical and se
As a contribution to understanding the possible impact of altered climate regimes on marine clouds, and hence on cloud radiative forcing, ship-observed marine low clouds and precipitation frequency for individual seasons are regressed at zero lag on an index of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) for the period December 1955– January 1996 for ocean areas between 40°S and 70°N. Seasonal anomalies of atmospheric circulation parameters, static stability, and SST are also examined in order to illumi
Abstract A unified convection scheme (UNICON) is implemented into the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), and tested in single-column and global simulations forced by observed sea surface temperature. Compared to CAM5, UNICON substantially improves the single-column simulations of stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition and shallow and deep convection cases. The global performance of UNICON is similar to CAM5 with a relative spatiotemporal root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.777 (0.755 in C
Abstract A new heuristic model of stratocumulus cloudiness in the inversion-capped marine boundary layer is developed and tested. The essential ingredient is a new method for predicting the statistical distribution of temperature and specific humidity at the inversion base under partially decoupled conditions along steady-state marine boundary layer (MBL) trajectories. MBL decoupling is parameterized as an increasing function of the height difference between the inversion base and lifting conden
Abstract The influence of cloud radiative feedback, remote ENSO heat flux forcing, and oceanic entrainment on persisting North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies is investigated using a stochastically forced ocean mixed layer model. The stochastic heat flux is estimated from an atmospheric general circulation model, the seasonally varying radiative feedback parameter and remote ENSO forcing are obtained from observations, and entrainment is derived from the observed mean seasonal cy
Abstract Cumulus elements generated by detraining convective condensate–detrained cumulus–are added to the Community Atmosphere Model Version 5 (CAM5) combined with a Unified Convection Scheme (UNICON). Instead of evaporating convective liquids detrained into clear portions, we diagnosed a new detrained cumulus that is horizontally nonoverlapped with cumulus and stratus in each layer by assuming a steady state balance between the detrainment rate of cumulus condensates and the dissipation rate o
Abstract Several previous studies have reported significant El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) signals in precipitation fields over the Mediterranean region during boreal summer and autumn. However, responsible physical mechanisms are unclear. In this study, we report significant simultaneous ENSO signals in ship‐observed visible‐sky conditions over the north‐eastern Atlantic and western Mediterranean Sea (WM) during late summer and autumn in 1956–95, consistent with previous studies of precipi
Abstract To enhance El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecast skill, we devise a model analog (MA)‐linear inverse model (LIM) by nudging sea surface temperature and sea surface height anomalies forecasted by the LIM into the MA. The performances of the LIM, MA, and MA‐LIM are compared to general circulation model simulations and observations. At short (long) lead month , the LIM (MA) predicts the Niño 3.4 SST anomalies better than the MA (LIM). On the other hand, the MA‐LIM shows the best per
Abstract By extending the previously developed unified convection scheme (UNICON), we develop a stochastic UNICON with convective updraft plumes at the surface randomly sampled from the correlated multivariate Gaussian distribution for updraft vertical velocity w^ and thermodynamic scalars ϕ^, of which standard deviations and intervariable correlations are derived from the surface-layer similarity theory. The updraft plume radius R^ at the surface follows a power-law distribution with a specifie
Abstract. Based on the decoupling parameterization of the cloud-topped planetary boundary layer, a simple equation is derived to compute the inversion height. In combination with the lifting condensation level and the amount of water vapor in near-surface air, we propose a low-level cloud suppression parameter (LCS) and estimated low-level cloud fraction (ELF), as new proxies for the analysis of the spatiotemporal variation of the global low-level cloud amount (LCA). Individual surface and upper
Research Areas
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