Large increase in heavy rainfall associated with tropical cyclone landfalls in Korea after the late 1970s

This study presents a new demonstration of the abrupt increase in the heavy rainfall events (≥100 mm day^-1) during August-September in Korea around the late 1970s. The accumulated heavy rainfall averaged for the two months over 12 stations was 57 mm during 1954-77 (ID1); however, it changed to 103 mm during 1978-2005 (ID2). This change is found to be associated with landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs). The most plausible mechanism that accounts for the TC-heavy rainfall relationship is an enhanced TC-upper-tropospheric trough (UTT) interaction, which results from a southward shift of the upper-tropospheric jet in East Asia during ID2. White the intensity and duration of the landfalling TCs in Korea does not appear to exhibit such an interdecadal change based on the data available, the enhanced TC-UTT interaction increases the upper(lower)-tropospheric divergence (convergence) and coherent ascending motion, which strengthen the frontal zone around Korea.