This new study published in the Journal of Atmospheric Environment quantifies the different components of warming there, with UHI making up over half of the total warming:
On average, the total temperature increase over South Korea was about 1.37 °C; the amount of increase caused by the greenhouse effect is approximately 0.60 °C, and the amount caused by urban warming is approximately 0.77 °C.
A perfect long term urbanization experiment exists that can illustrate and test this:
The real test of this would be if North Korea has maintained a surface temperature record that could be compared. Given that they are a closed country, chances are that if it exists. getting it is close to zero. What I wouldn’t give to get it. I wonder if Phil Jones has any?
Here’s the paper abstract:
Quantitative estimates of warming by urbanization in South Korea over the past 55 years (1954―2008)
Auteur(s) / Author(s)
KIM Maeng-Ki (1) ; KIM Seonae (2);
Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s)
(1) Department of Atmospheric Science, Kongju National University, Gongju 314-701, COREE, REPUBLIQUE DE
(2) Applied Meteorology Research Team, Environmental Prediction Research Inc., Daejon 302-831, COREE, REPUBLIQUE DE
Résumé / Abstract
The quantitative values of the urban warming effect over city stations in the Korean peninsula were estimated by using the warming mode of Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis of 55 years of temperature data, from 1954 to 2008. The estimated amount of urban warming was verified by applying the multiple linear regression equation with two independent variables: the rate of population growth and the total population. Through the multiple linear regression equation, we obtained a significance level of 0.05% and a coefficient of determination of 0.60. This means that it is somewhat liable to the estimated effects of urbanization, in spite of the settings of some supposition. The cities that show great warming due to urbanization are Daegu, Pohang, Seoul, and Incheon, which show values of about 1.35, 1.17, 1.16, and 1.10 °C, respectively. The areas that showed urban warming less than 0.2 °C are Chupungnyeong and Mokpo. On average, the total temperature increase over South Korea was about 1.37 °C; the amount of increase caused by the greenhouse effect is approximately 0.60 °C, and the amount caused by urban warming is approximately 0.77 °C.
Revue / Journal Title
Atmospheric environment ISSN 1352-2310
h/t to Pierre Gosselin at No Tricks Zone
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A very provocative paper, which uses a good case study of a rapidly urbanising modern economy as the basis for investigation.
It is also, however, right by the Pacific Ocean and hence any oceanic effects are likely to be more marked than, say, in Mongolia, Southern Siberia or Western Montana. It’d be interesting to see the ‘national temperature curve’ for South Korea to see if there has been any rapid warming post 1977 which may be affected by PDO oscillations etc.
Any chance of getting the authors to contribute a paper which addresses questions readers of this blog site may raise?
This might me a possible source for NK surface wx data…
http://data.cma.gov.cn/
The IPCC declared that their models proved that urban warming has only increased by temperatures by 0.01 degree C over the last century! Shows how much they know! Divide their other results by 77 and you get close to the truth.
“What I wouldn’t give to get it.”
I am confused as to why it is not in the past 30 or so years of satellite data….
Of course I have been confused for years as to why you guys have not tried to find the UHI in satellite data anywhere in the world….
So there is that.
“Pointing to reduced urban aerosols and aerosol seeded clouds as the cause of the urban warming.”
Why not just fire up the GCMs and find out whether the clouds result in warming or cooling in the Korean Penninsula. Surely they will tell.
Compare the satellite night time illumination of North and South Korea. Isn’t North Korea pathetic? Makes you wonder what that one white dot in North Korea is? Did Kim Jong Un leave his bathroom light on?
I can’t imagine why the South Koreans would be jeopardising their own prosperity by adhering to the AGW mantra. South Korea is a second Japan in terms of rapid industrialisation and modernisation following the obliteration of the Japanese occupation and then the Korean War. A powerhouse that owes its present circumstances to coal and the burning of same. They also have a far greater worry than supposed AGW in the form of a belligerent NK and their proximity to the Chinese. Besides, warmer winters would be beneficial.
Has anyone looked for a correlation of temperature trend for night time illumination measurement instead of population density?
Why not Google/Bing “north korea surface temperatures? There’s data out there, some of it possibly useful.
Joshua Corning says:
December 29, 2011 at 2:01 pm (Edit)
“What I wouldn’t give to get it.”
I am confused as to why it is not in the past 30 or so years of satellite data….
Of course I have been confused for years as to why you guys have not tried to find the UHI in satellite data anywhere in the world….
So there is that.
################################
that’s because you cannot find UHI in satellite data.
UHI has a vertical structure.
1. At the surface you have SUHI. that is, increases in the SKIN temperature of the urban
fabric. This temperature is not directly measureable by satellite but can be inferred
from satelite retrievals. basically, you have to use radiative transfer equations ( the physics that say C02 warms the planet ) to estimate LST ( land surface temp ) from the brightness temperature. The problem is you can only get these pictures when its cloud free and only at certain times of the day and night for particular locations. Still you can get estimates of SUHI MAX, but
I only know of one study that looked at it over time ( a dissertation )
2. From the roof top to the surface, you have what is called the urban canopy layer. Air temperature here is the air temp that is sampled by a thermometer 2m off the ground. The air temp here is determined by the land surface temperature and horizontal advection. Satellite cannot “see” this temperature.
3. from the roof top to the mixing layer you have “boundary layer’ UHI. this probably extends
a kilometer or 2 into the atomospere. Above the boundary layer, UHI is all mixed away.
Since the urban area is so tiny ( <1%) of the total surface, it doesnt add anything detectable
at layers above the UBL.
So, the trend in temperature above this layer (TLT) are above .2C per decade from 1979-2010, over land. The land surface trends are on the order of .26C to .28C depending on who you believe. So, globally the difference between the trend at 2meters and the trend at 11km or so
is not that great.
Nik
‘How do this compares to this study?”
good question. The studies are really not caparable.
different time periods, different methods, different geographical coverage, different stations
You can’t simply compare a a global study to a regional study.
Also, note. What you see here is a increase of .6C over 55 years. Or about .1C per decade in a region that is rapidily urbanizing. In china, we see the same thing, although the rate there is more like, .05C decade. In japan, also rapidly urbanizing you have similar figures.
By comparing the satellite trends (.18- .2C decade) over land, to the surface trends ( .26-.28C)
you can see that there may be a GLOBAL UHI trend of somewhere between 0 and .1C decade.
on a GLOBAL basis ( Ps we found .04C per decade globally) REGIONALLY, you will see places like Korea, Japan, China, having bias rates higher than .04C. Latitudinally, you will see that rates in the northern hemisphere are higher than the southern hemisphere.
So, you basically have apples and oranges. You have to look at
1. The stations actually used
2. The time period
3. whether the study is global or regional or site specific.
4. The methods
5. the classification system.
Pitiful. They correlated with rate of population growth and population growth. How about multiplying by GDP per head?
S Korea in 1954 was dirt poor, ravaged by war. I’ll bet there wasn’t much energy use per head. Look at it now.
Don’t these people have any smarts?
Here’s something y’all may not know about South Korea
Land area: 99,260 sq km
Primary energy use: 255 MTOE (million tons of oil equivalent) per year
Calorific content of oil: 42 giga joules per TOE
Primary energy use, joules per year: 1.07e19 joules
Equivalent constant surface forcing: 3.4 W/m2
Just sayin’, when you have an industrial economy in a small country, just the burning of the fuel alone can be a significant factor.
w.
Yep, concrete and asphalt retain daytime heat better than grassland, desert or forest…especially when it is sunny during the day. Next question…
Tez says:
December 29, 2011 at 10:42 am
How can they be sure that the rest of the heating was due to the Greenhouse effect? Have they ruled out the sun’s contribution?
Or any other numerous potential atmospheric oscillations.
RE: DPRK – All one needs to do is count the frozen bodies each year to determine warming or cooling trends. It’s 4deg. F. in Pyongyang as of 30 min. ago. Google Earth weather.
Oh, yeah. If we assume blackbody conditions at 10°C for Korea, 3.4 W/m2 converts by SB to 0.7°C of warming in Korea from fuel use alone.
w.
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Korea_North/KP.html
LazyTeenager says:
December 29, 2011 at 11:39 am
“The 0.6 degrees over 55 years corresponds very well with the global 0.1 degrees per decade warming rate that has been observed. And the 0.8C since 1900.
The measurement of the UHI in Korean cities has not made that go away. Sorry, the elephant is still in the room.”
The warming phase in the first half of the 20th century had the same slope as the one during the 1980’s and 1990’s. In the 2000s, warming stopped even though CO2 kept rising. So, the Earth is not showing any different behaviour than it did before 1950. The elephant in the room is that all the UNFCCC’s and UNIPCC’s efforts to demonstrate a change in this behaviour have amounted to nothing.
29 Dec: WSJ: RYAN TRACY And JIM CARLTON: California Low-Carbon Fuel Rules Halted
The decision puts on hold a major portion of California’s effort to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, at a time when the most-populous state’s stance has taken on extra importance nationwide because of a stalemate in Washington over greenhouse-gas legislation.
The judge’s move means that refiners and ethanol producers, which previously could have been faced with having to buy credits when importing oil and ethanol into California to comply with the rules, will now be freed of those obligations…
Judge O’Neill hasn’t issued a final decision on the case, but on Thursday he barred California from enforcing the rules while the lawsuit continues…
David Pettit, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which intervened in the case, said other states considering similar rules “would likely be scared off trying to do what California did if the decision is upheld.”…
“It is not surprising that the oil industry is attacking these programs, but like previous attacks in the courts and at the ballot box, we expect this one ultimately to fail,” said Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm based in San Francisco.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128972816077652.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Tez says:
December 29, 2011 at 10:42 am
How can they be sure that the rest of the heating was due to the Greenhouse effect? Have they ruled out the sun’s contribution?
==========================
Please send money … contribution of the sun doesn’t attract money 🙂
Willis, using South Korea’s 81,000,000 barrels of imported oil in a year * 5,780,000 btu’s per barrel * 1055 joules per btu / 365 / 24 / 60 / 60, I get about 16GW average power. I spread that over the 99,260,000,000 square meters to get 0.16 W/m2 (your number seems to be 20x too high).
This is an interesting calculation. I’ve done the same for the U.S. and in urban areas the forcing due to energy use (it’s all degraded to heat in the end) is a significant fraction of the observed warming.
What cities are all those lights off the South Korean east coast coming from? Why is there so much light in the North West?
This is an interesting, if unintended, experiment. It’s nice to see totalitarianism being useful for something after all.