Recent trends in temperature and precipitation over South Korea

Temperature and precipitation changes over South Korea have been studied since 1954, both in terms of means and extreme events, using observational station data. Recurrence intervals are defined to examine trends in extreme events at each station. Generally, it is possible to describe trends in temperature and precipitation over South Korea as follows. The annual mean temperature shows an upward trend at a rate of 0.23 °C decade−1 in the past four to five decades. There are some indications that climatic extremes have increased during recent decades. The diurnal temperature range increased in the later part of the time series (except for summer) as a result of a faster increase in maximum temperature than in minimum temperature. This is not consistent with the results reported elsewhere in the world. A wavelet analysis of wintertime temperatures indicates that the rapid warming in the recent decade may be associated with the warm phase of a decadal–interdecadal variation. The frequency of occurrence of extreme maximum temperature events shows an increasing trend, with higher values in the 1980s and 1990s. The frequency of occurrence of extreme minimum temperature events shows the opposite, with a statistically significant decreasing trend. Copyright © 2002 Royal Meteorological Society.