Changes in weather and climate extremes over Korea and possible causes: A review

Abstract

Weather and climate extremes exert devastating influence on human society and ecosystem around the world. Recent observations show increase in frequency and intensity of climate extremes around the world including East Asia. In order to assess current status of the observed changes in weather and climate extremes and discuss possible mechanisms, this study provides an overview of recent analyses on such extremes over Korea and East Asia. It is found that the temperature extremes over the Korean Peninsula exhibit long-term warming trends with more frequent hot events and less frequent cold events, along with sizeable interannual and decadal variabilities. The comprehensive review on the previous literature further suggests that the weather and climate extremes over East Asia can be affected by several climate factors of external and internal origins. It has been assessed that greenhouse warming leads to increase in warm extremes and decrease in cold extremes over East Asia, but recent Arctic sea-ice melting and associated warming tends to bring cold snaps to East Asia during winter. Internal climate variability such as tropical intraseasonal oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation can also exert considerable impacts on weather and climate extremes over Korea and East Asia. It is, however, noted that our current understanding is far behind to estimate the effect of these climate factors on local weather and climate extremes in a quantitative sense.

Spatial and temporal changes in leaf coloring date of Acer palmatum and Ginkgo biloba in response to temperature increases in South Korea

“…This may be because the photoperiod is powerful regulator to autumn phenology in the region with severe winter or high latitude [24]. South Korea has relatively severe winter compared to other regions in similar latitudes due to generally affected by northern cold air from Siberia in winter season [50]. …”

Species- and elevation-dependent productivity changes in East Asian temperate forests

“…Spatial data for South Korean forests 2.1.1. Study area and tree species distribution As a result of its geographical location (figure 1(a)), South Korea is affected by the Asian monsoon regime: in winter, cold air masses from the Asian continent prevail, while in summer, the country receives warm moist air masses of tropical origin (Min et al 2015). More than 60% of the country is mountainous, and the altitude of the terrain is high in the east and low in the west.…”

Regional Classification of Intra-seasonal Fluctuations Appeared in Wintertime Daily Mean Temperature Change in East Asia by Cluster Analysis

“…한파의 출현특성 (Zhang et al, 1997;Chen et al, 2004;Ding et al, 2009;Kim et al, 2014;Jeon and Cho, 2015;Ou et al, 2015 등), 한파 출현에 영향을 미치는 대기 순 환 특성 및 이 특성에 의한 한파의 분류 (Jeong and Ho, 2005;Park et al, 2011a;2011b;Kuang et al, 2014;Ou et al, 2015 등) (Zhai and Pan, 2003;Choi, 2004;Griffiths et al, 2005;Fujibe et al, 2007;Choi et al, 2009;Kuang et al, 2014;Min et al, 2015;He and Wang, 2016 등). 특히 한국 에서 이루어진 극한기후 및 극한기상 연구의 리뷰 (Min et al, 2015) Table 1) used in this paper. Thick solid lines with numbers (3,000 and 4,500) show the smoothed contour around the Tibet Plateau (unit meters).…”