In 2100, No 'Seoul Spring'... 110 Days of Heatwaves if Carbon Emissions Don't Decrease

KMA Regional Climate Change Scenarios
Seoul Summer Days 66.6 Days → 194.3 Days
Half a Year Summer, Spring and Autumn Likely to Disappear

If greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, Seoul is expected to experience heatwaves lasting more than three months around the year 2100.

According to the "Regional Climate Change Scenario" provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) on the 24th, under the "high carbon scenario" with no significant greenhouse gas reduction, the average number of heatwave days in Seoul will dramatically increase from the current 15 days to 109.8 days during 2081?2100. A heatwave day is defined as a day with a maximum temperature of 33 degrees Celsius or higher, meaning that from several decades later, high temperature conditions will persist for nearly four months.

The KMA predicts domestic climate changes up to 2100 using greenhouse gas concentration and climate change numerical models. The projections are calculated based on four scenarios, including a low carbon scenario assuming carbon neutrality by 2070 and a high carbon scenario where no greenhouse gas reductions occur.

Under the high carbon scenario, the number of summer days in Seoul will increase from 66.6 days to 194.3 days. More than half of the year will effectively be summer, resulting in the disappearance of spring and autumn. Tropical nights, defined as nights with a minimum temperature of 25 degrees Celsius or higher, are expected to increase more than eightfold from the current 11.3 days to 96.1 days. Annual precipitation is predicted to rise from an average of 1269.6 mm to 1521.9 mm, an increase of 252.3 mm.

Abnormal high temperature phenomena are also being observed this summer. From the 1st to the 20th of this month, the number of heatwave days was 2.4, four times the 1991?2020 average of 0.6 days. This surpassed the 1.5 days recorded in June 2018, the year with the most heatwave days. Notably, Seoul experienced a tropical night on the 21st, the earliest since meteorological observations began in 1907. This was one week earlier than June 28, 2022, when the first "June tropical night" occurred.

Meanwhile, the Heatwave Research Center at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) predicted through artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning that the number of heatwave days this year will exceed the average level of 10.2 days.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.