Climate and weather

This year’s rainy season not only left flood damage but also concerns over climate change.

WI MUN-HEEThe author is a national team reporter of the JoongAng Ilbo. “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS — Whatever happened to Global Warming?” Former U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted in November 2018 while he was in office, referring to record-breaking cold fronts in the U.S. East Coast. He tried to argue that global warming was fake, but experts pointed out that he got climate, or global warming, confused with weather, or cold waves.

Weather is the result of the earth’s atmosphere in a particular area. On the other hand, climate is the average state of weather in a particular area over time.

In 2015, the British Meteorological Office analyzed that the earth’s temperature rose 1.02 degrees Celsius from the industrial era (1850-1900) average, and global warming should be regarded as climate change. In the same year, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, or the Paris Agreement, was adopted to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Trump’s distrust of climate change also affected his administration’s handling of affairs. Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in July 2017, five months after taking office. At the time, the Trump administration asked officials to use the term “weather extremes” instead of “climate change.”

It is ironic that he seems to have predicted a world where the weather reports cannot be made without using words such as “highest”, “lowest” and “biggest ever.”

On July 11, an emergency disaster text message on the “extreme heavy rains” in the southeastern parts of Seoul was sent for the first time. The pilot program was implemented in the Seoul metropolitan region in June, after the devastating heavy rain in the central region in August 2022, and the first alert was sent within a month.

The disaster alert is sent when extreme rainfall of more than 50 millimeters (20 inches) per hour is recorded — under the condition that 90 millimeters of rainfall is recorded for at least three hours.

In other countries, the main cause of extreme rainfall is viewed as climate change. As the temperature rises, the atmosphere contains more water vapor than in the past, leading to more intense rain for a longer period.

The four seasons, which Korea takes pride in, are no longer the same. Summer is scorching hot and winter is brutally cold. Spring and autumn are very brief. The traditional 24 divisions of the year also have become a mess. This year’s rainy season not only left flood damage but also concerns over climate change.