Worsening of Heat Stress Due To Global Warming in South Korea Based on Multi‐RCM Ensemble Projections

Im, Eun‐Soon; Choi, Yonghyun; Ahn, Joong‐Bae

doi:10.1002/2017jd026731

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…It is also equally important to consider ambient humidity because humans are sensitive to the combination of temperature and humidity (Steinweg and Gutowski 2015, Pal and Eltahir 2016, Im et al 2017b. Therefore, we also investigate the characteristics of WBGT that is widely used to measure the heat stress and accompanied risk level (Willett and Sherwood 2012, Im et al 2017a. Figure 5 presents WBGT and daily mean temperature and daily mean relative humidity (RH) used to calculate WBGT.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consistent with the projected changes at the global scale such as a virtually certain increase in the frequency and magnitude of unusually warm days and nights (IPCC 2013), recent studies based on climate modeling have demonstrated that the statistical likelihood of extreme hot temperatures and heatwaves in Korea is also projected to increase due to global warming (Lee 2017, Im et al 2015, 2017a, Shin et al 2018. Most of these studies have focused on comparative analysis to show how much future climate in response to enhanced greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) will depart from the reference climate in response to historical GHGs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…It is largely considered that the risks of extreme maximum temperatures and resultant heat stress will continue to increase over many different regions in tandem with the rise in global average temperature (Bador et al 2017, Im et al 2017a, 2017b, Sylla et al 2018. However, the severity of extreme temperature events at the regional to local scale may not be necessarily proportional to the degree of global warming (Knutti et al 2016, Harrington et al 2018.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Baek et al (2013) demonstrated that HadGEM2-AO showed reasonable performance over East Asia, including our target domain. These two downscaled results are part of the national downscaling project in South Korea, and their detailed configuration and basic performance appear in Im et al (2015Im et al ( , 2017a. On the other hand, the Regional .…”

Section: Experimental Design and Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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2018 summer extreme temperatures in South Korea and their intensification under 3 °C global warming

Nguyen-Xuan

Kim

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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With the acceleration in global warming, extreme hot temperatures have emerged as one of the most prominent risks. In this study, we characterize the unprecedented extreme temperatures that occurred in Korea in summer 2018, and attempt to explain how this locally observed extreme event can be interpreted in the context of 2°C and 3°C global warming above the pre-industrial level. To better resolve geographically diverse climate features and enhance confidence in future changes, three global projections are dynamically downscaled using three regional climate models that are customized over Korea and the systematic biases are statistically corrected using quantile mapping. In July and August 2018, abnormally high maximum temperatures (Tmax) were observed over the entire territory of South Korea. Beyond the increase of mean value, Tmax at individual stations departed significantly from the typical Gaussian distribution of climatological Tmax due to the dramatic changes in the extent and shape of upper tails. The distinct behaviors of Tmax that appeared in 2018 largely represent the statistical analog of the distribution pattern expected under 3°C global warming based on finescale climate projections. This implies that statistically extremely rare events like that of summer 2018 will become increasingly normal if global average temperature is allowed to increase by 3°C. More importantly, the extreme heat stress measured by the wet-bulb globe temperature is projected to intensify the risks to a level never before seen in contemporary climate. This study is timely and relevant to the need to identify how the globally aggregated warming target temperature can be disaggregated into regional impacts.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experimental Design and Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

2018 summer extreme temperatures in South Korea and their intensification under 3 °C global warming

Nguyen-Xuan

Kim

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…The critical role of extreme heat with respect to many different crops has been reported, with a particular emphasis on the disproportionately negative impacts of the accumulation of extreme heat on agriculture production (Schlenker and Roberts, 2009). The intensity and frequency of extreme temperature during summer in South Korea have gradually increased in accordance with rising global mean temperature (Im et al, 2015(Im et al, , 2017. As global warming accelerates, the uncommonly high Tmax under the current climate is likely to become increasingly normal (Im et al, 2017(Im et al, , 2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of Temperature-Based Agricultural Indices Over Korea From the High-Resolution WRF Simulation

Qiu

et al. 2021

Front. Earth Sci.

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This study evaluates the performance of dynamical downscaling of global prediction generated from the NOAA Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) at subseasonal time-scale against dense in-situ observational data in Korea. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) double-nested modeling system customized over Korea is adopted to produce very high resolution simulation that presumably better resolves geographically diverse climate features. Two ensemble members of CFSv2 starting with different initial conditions are downscaled for the summer season (June-July-August) during past 10-year (2011–2020). The comparison of simulations from the nested domain (5 km resolution) of WRF and driving CFSv2 (0.5°) clearly demonstrates the manner in which dynamical downscaling can drastically improve daily mean temperature (Tmean) and daily maximum temperature (Tmax) in both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The downscaled temperature not only better resolves the regional variability strongly tied with topographical elevation, but also substantially lowers the systematic cold bias seen in CFSv2. The added value from the nested domain over CFSv2 is far more evident in Tmax than in Tmean, which indicates a skillful performance in capturing the extreme events. Accordingly, downscaled results show a reasonable performance in simulating the plant heat stress index that counts the number of days with Tmax above 30°C and extreme degree days that accumulate temperature exceeding 30°C using hourly temperature. The WRF simulations also show the potential to capture the variation of Tmean-based index that represents the accumulation of heat stress in reproductive growth for the mid-late maturing rice cultivars in Korea. As the likelihood of extreme hot temperatures is projected to increase in Korea, the modeling skill to predict the ago-meteorological indices measuring the effect of extreme heat on crop could have significant implications for agriculture management practice.

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Projections of suitable cultivation area for major fruit trees and climate‐type in South Korea under representative concentration pathway scenarios using the ensemble of high‐resolution regional climate models

Kim

Ahn

Shim

et al. 2023

Intl Journal of Climatology

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This study projected the future changes in the climate‐type distribution in South Korea according to the Köppen–Trewartha climate classification (KTCC) under the representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5/8.5 scenarios and the future change of cultivation area of apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) and mandarin (Citrus unshiu Marc.), which are major fruit crops in South Korea, using five regional climate models with a 12.5 km horizontal resolution. According to KTCC, type temperate (D)s is dominant in most of South Korea during the reference period (1981–2005). On the other hand, it is projected that the area of Type D and Type subtropical (C) will decrease and increase, respectively, towards higher latitudes and elevations in the future under RCP4.5/8.5 scenarios. Accordingly, the cultivation areas of major fruit crops in South Korea are projected to change significantly. The cultivation area of apple (mandarin), which is a major current fruit crop in Type D (C), is projected to be reduced (expanded) as it moves towards higher latitudes and elevations in the future. Apples grown throughout South Korea in the present climate (reference period) are not expected to be cultivated in the late‐21C due to climate change. On the other hand, the cultivation area of mandarins is projected to increase steadily in the future. At present, mandarins are cultivated only in Jeju Island, which is located in the south of the South Korea. However, the cultivation area is expected to increase by 1323% in late‐21C under the RCP8.5 scenario compared to the reference period. Moreover, mandarin cultivation is projected to be possible anywhere in South Korea. Nevertheless, in late‐21C, excessive increases in temperature that exceeds the appropriate temperature for mandarin in Jeju Island and the southern part of South Korea will eventually decrease the cultivation area of mandarins.

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Worsening of Heat Stress Due To Global Warming in South Korea Based on Multi‐RCM Ensemble Projections

Cited by 19 publications

References 42 publications

2018 summer extreme temperatures in South Korea and their intensification under 3 °C global warming

2018 summer extreme temperatures in South Korea and their intensification under 3 °C global warming

An Evaluation of Temperature-Based Agricultural Indices Over Korea From the High-Resolution WRF Simulation

Projections of suitable cultivation area for major fruit trees and climate‐type in South Korea under representative concentration pathway scenarios using the ensemble of high‐resolution regional climate models

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