Climate change in South Korea

Seoul, capital city of South Korea, has 228 years of precipitation records, starting with traditional cheugugi rain gauges, which is the longest continual instrumental rainfall collection in the world. The record of daily precipitation provides a high-resolution dataset for detecting the singularity of extreme weather events and the multiple decades of precipitation variability. Precipitation was measured with cheugugi from 1778 to 1907, and modern observation equipment was developed and has been used since 1908. Comparing the cheugugi period and the modern period, the modern period shows a significant increase in mean rainfall rate. For example, statistical data for summer precipitation at cheugugi period is 861.8 mm whereas that for the modern period mean is 946.5 mm.[5]

As the amount of rainfall in the last 9 years has increased because of the number of heavy rain and torrential rain events having increased in frequency, the risk of heavy rain has become much higher on the southern part of peninsula than the central region of the Korea peninsula. A large amount of water vapor entering the southern part of the peninsula (Southern coast, Jeju Island) flows into the Yellow Sea in summer and creates a high frequency of torrential rains. On the other hand, the east coast shows a low torrential rain frequency. As of 1990, over the past 20 years and over the most recent 20 years the torrential rain frequency data show a 25% increase in torrential rain watches and a 60% increase in heavy rain warnings.[6]

The tropical rain belt 'Changma front' is created in the Bay of Bengal and the western North Pacific as a sub-system of the East Asian Monsoon. The northward movement of the 'Changma front' is influenced by the development of the subtropical ridge.[7] This northward moving quasi-stationary front is called 'Changma' in South Korea, which represents the main precipitation period.[3][6] The 'Changma front' takes about 4 to 5 weeks to go through the Korea Peninsula. This slow movement results in a large, but steady, amount of summer rainfall over the entire Korea Peninsula in late June and July each year. In recent years, the 'Changma front' tended to move quickly, taking less than 3 weeks to go through the Korea Peninsula while pouring down heavy rain showers, along with various sizes of storms from late July to early August.[2] It means that we are having more extreme weather and localized heavy rain occurring after 'Changma'.[8] The dynamics of the 'Changma' rains in the early summer, which derive from baroclinic disturbances that are strongly modified by latent heat release, remain poorly understood. There is also another 'Changma' type which is sometimes called the 'Fall Changma'. This is not, of course, an official term from the Korea Meteorological Administration. However, this 'Fall Changma' is created due to recent climate change. The 'Fall Changma' starts normally in late August to early September. After the North Pacific anticyclone is entirely over in the Korea Peninsula, the 'Fall Changma' is also over. This recent 'Fall Changma' bring a lot more damages than the normal 'Changma' because the 'Fall Changma' pours down extreme heavy rain intensively in a short term.[9] While an increase in rainfall in the absence of the monsoonal circulation shifts is expected, relatively modest shifts or changes in timing can significantly affect East Chinese, Korean and Japanese climates.[10]

Since 1999, the Korea Global Atmosphere Watch Center located at Anmyeon-do has been monitoring major greenhouse gasses (GHG) such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and chlorofluorocarbons (CFC-11 and CFC-12). The Anmyeon-do station is located in a relatively pollution-free environment, an ideal site for observing the background atmosphere of Northeast Asia, including the Korean Peninsula. Among these GHG, CO₂ acts most to change many aspects of the climate factors.[11] The CO₂ concentrations at Anmyeon-do are substantially higher than the global average; the average CO₂ concentration for 2011 was recorded as 395.7 ppm, an increase of 25.0 ppm (6.7%) relative to the annual average of 370.7 ppm for 1999, and 5.2 ppm higher than the global average of 390.5 ppm for the same year as documented by NOAA/GMD.[12] The annual growth rate of CO₂ for the 13-year period from 1999 through 2011 was 2.16 ppm/year, which was higher than the global average of 1.9 ppm/year, but it has slowed in recent years.[11]

During the industrialization era (second industrial revolution) over the past few decades, people have been burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, gasoline, natural gas), which releases CO₂ into the atmosphere, causing the greenhouse effect.[13] A sharp temperature contrast is shown between the urban and rural areas due to this industrialization. The mean temperatures data variations observed at ten meteorological stations in South Korea show an annual mean temperature increase at a rate of 0.52 °C per decade. During the last 29 years, the increase in the annual mean temperature was 1.5 °C for the Seoul station (found in an urban area) and 0.6 °C for the rural and seashore stations. These rate differences are significantly larger over urbanized areas.[2]

South Korea is experiencing a rapid temperature increase. Higher daily maximum and minimum temperatures are very likely to increase in East Asia, resulting in more severe warm extremes, but less severe cold extremes.[10] These mean temperature increases, especially the temperature increase rate after the 1950s is 1.5 times higher than before the 1950s. The duration of winter is also projected to be a one-month shorter than before, therefore having spring and summer will be 20 days longer more during the 1990s compared to what they were during the 1920s seasonal distribution.[14] When average temperature comparison for comparing 20th-century and 21st-century temperature averages, it is shown that there is a 4 °C increase. The mean yearly temperature for South Korea is 10~15 °C,[15] which means that the Korea Peninsula will soon become a subtropical region with an average temperature of over 27 °C. The recent subtropical zone is located on the lower seaside of Korea Peninsula, but as accelerated temperatures increase, it will result in the subtropical zone move migrating northward. Therefore, by 2100 the subtropical zone is projected to expand its region to the north end of Taebaek Mountains.[14]

The damage to property and loss of lives caused by natural disasters are a typical impact of climate change. Because of this point, decreasing the natural disaster is one of goals for nations adapting to climate change.[19] Increases in frequency of flooding, typhoons, or hurricane intensity results in a steady increase of the number of large scale natural disasters. South Korea is not an exception. Especially, damage for flooding and typhoon is significant. Despite of the increasing threat, the vulnerability to natural disaster, especially typhoon, has been decreased possibly due to multiple factors, such as, improved disaster prevention, changed building codes, industrial structures, and land use.[20]

As of 2021 Korea is funding construction of overseas coal power.[21]

According to the map of industry distribution in Korea, it is noticeable that north-east part of the Korea does not have significant industry. High-tech, heavy and IT industries are placed near the capital, or more close to the sea in the south of Korea. Unlike the industry distribution density, according to the map of damage from natural disaster, the damage is the most dense in the north-east part of the Korea.

There are about 1.5 million people in South Korea that follow some sort of plant-based diet, and about 500,000 vegans who do not eat any animal products at all.[22] The most common reason blog authors cited for cutting down on meat consumption was for health, with 63.1 percent of blogs mentioning healthy cooking, followed by ethical reasons at 52.9 percent, environmental protection concerns at 36.2 percent, and wanting to lose weight at 26.3 percent.[23]

There is a carbon trading system.[24]

The Green New Deal is a plan set up by the ruling party the DPK ahead of the 2020 parliament elections. The plan includes to reach zero emission by 2050, to stop providing construction for coal power plants overseas and to reduce fine dust by 40% in 2040.[25] The government also aims to achieve a target of 40% renewable power by 2034 and the replacement of some coal capacity with liquefied natural gas.[26]

The South Korean president Moon Jae in pledged in September, 2020 that South Korea would be carbon free in 2050.[27] The 2030 goal is almost a quarter reduction from 2017 levels.[28]

A new Korean Government IT strategy project is projected to have a 20% increase in green IT and IT product by 2012 [29] by the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security have already started a computational center for green energy-saving and have formulated a comprehensive plan to promote the 'energy-saving'. Through professional organizations comprehensive energy-saving, environmental protection, and budget savings procedures are in progress for energy diagnostic purposes. In addition to what has already been discussed the plan for idle shut-off, demolition equipment, and main contents as ' a green-based computational center for environmental improvement plans ' will also go ahead as scheduled.[30]