'Extreme' heat waves to grill 29 more Korean cities starting 2021
A Siberian tiger cools off in a pool inside its cage at Seoul Grand Park in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, July 30, during a heat wave continuing for days. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
By Ko Dong-hwan
Despite the Korean government's efforts to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions to fight the global climate change threat, extreme heat waves will spread to 29 more cities starting 2021, according to the country's national forecast agency.
The Korea Meteorological Administration's (KMA) special analysis on the country's 229 cities and counties said those with “very high” risk of extreme heat will jump from 19 in 2001 to 2010, to 48 in 2021 to 2030 ― under the condition the country keeps enforcing the international eco-friendly measures of Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 that maintains carbon dioxide concentration around 540 parts per million.
RCP is a greenhouse gas concentration trajectory adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its fifth assessment report in 2014. The Korean environment ministry defines RCP 4.5 ― the second-most stringent RCP scenario out of four ― as a scenario where the country “faithfully employs carbon emission reduction policies.”
The KMA's report added that Korean cities and counties with “high” risk will increase from 50 to 78, while “low” risk and “very low” risk will be reduced from 64 to 32 and 16 to 6, respectively.
The report further forecasted that if the country kept enforcing RCP 8.5 ― the least-stringent RCP scenario ignoring carbon emission reduction policies while maintaining CO2 concentration around 940 ppm ― instead of 4.5, cities and counties with very high extreme heatwave risk will jump to 72 during 2021 to 2030.
South Korea with "very high" risk of extreme heat wave in red and "very low" risk in yellow. Left, the country from 2001 to 2010 had 19 red zones. Center, the country is forecasted to have 48 red zones in 2021 to 2030 if it keeps enforcing the Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and, right, 72, under the same condition during the same period. Courtesy of the Ministry of Environment
The country defines “heat wave” as temperatures of 33 degree Celsius or higher. The KMA issues a heat wave warning when a heat wave persists for two days or more.
The KMA calculated the heat wave risks using indexes of “hazard,” “exposure” and “vulnerability.” The data came from surveys on experts of climate, health, environment, administration and statistics which then went through an analytic hierarchy process.
The ministry on July 10 launched a special heat wave counterstrike team led by its climate change policy bureau and comprising members from Korea Adaptation Center for Climate Change, Korea Climate and Environment Network, and Korea Environmental Industry Technology Institute. The group started visiting vulnerable sites and advising on using anti-heat environment architectural measures like cool roofing, cool pavement, cooling fog and wall-covering leafy plants.
In 2018, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) recorded that 48 people died of extreme heat. The country set a record that year for number of days engulfed by heat wave since 2011 ― 31.5 days.
The hottest temperature in Korea recently was 41 degree Celsius, recorded in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, on Aug. 1, 2018.