Climate change hits Korea
By Park Si-soo
09-12-2010 19:15 Global warming or climate change has been thought of as something reserved for the next generation to worry about. However, the weather affecting the Korean Peninsula these days would seem to belie this. Recent weather conditions — quite different from the norm — indicate that Korea is already under the influence of global warming, weather experts say. Weeks of downpours, sizzling summer heat and record snowfall last winter are all associated with the phenomenon and it is the warmer than usual Pacific Ocean that could be responsible. The whole country has been soaked with heavy rain for nearly a month and as related damage is reported every day, umbrellas have become a “must-have item.” “The rain we are experiencing now is obviously not typical,” said Kim Seung-bae, a spokesman for the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), Sunday. Kim admitted that the downpours have become more unpredictable, becoming like tropical squalls that hit smaller areas suddenly. … The latest sign of climate change in Korea is the extended rainy season in summer and the consequent decline in the number of sunny days. The KMA said 24 days in August were rainy in Seoul, the most since modern weather forecasting first introduced here in 1908. In August alone, the country had 374.5 millimeters of rain, higher than the 304.2 millimeters during the country’s monsoon season between June and July, the state weather agency said. The unusual pattern is continuing this month with 933.2 millimeters of rain hitting Seoul between Aug. 1 and Sept. 11, accounting for nearly 75 percent of the annual precipitation for the capital, it said. …
It has been a weird summer here in the Pacific Northwest too. No one, and I mean no one, has had any kind of garden this year.
I live right next to the Columbia River Gorge and folks from both sides have had no luck this year. I actually replanted my little garden three times and hardly anything came up.
It poured rain all the way through June, literally and then we had a heat wave or two in late July, early August and now Fall is here with a vengeance, Winter is coming early this year.
Deny Climate change all you want, just stick your head out the window for proof.
We used to call summers like the one we just had, simply bad weather. Now it's climate change. Come back to earth will you folks, we need you here.