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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The use is not distributed uniformly over Korea. It is concentrated in urban areas. I did the same calculation for just the larger urban areas of the U.S. and found a result that is a fair fraction of the forcing implied global warming.
What this study shows is urban warming was approximately double non-urban warming.
A different conclusion from the findings is that a local/regional effect causing warming is twice as strong in the urban areas compared to non-urban areas.
Hint – reduction in aerosols.
That is Seoul–a large urban area right next the the DMZ.
KK, use Google maps and zoom in to city level and yes you can see Seuol and a number of other cities/towns in the NW but there’s also lots of ‘greenery’ in between them so why so much light?
More importantly when did tehSouth Koreans decide to build all those floating cities off their east coast?
I have been to Mokpo. It is a port city on the south west coast. Maybe the prevailing winds off the sea/ocean reduces the UHI. see http://mokpo.info/
KevinUK, squid fishing nets. They use lots of small lanterns. Those are the brightly lit offshore areas. After the first manned orbits in the 1960s, the two brightest areas on our planet were observed to be the Persian Gulf (flaring gas) and the Sea of Japan (squid fishing nets).
As I understand the UHI issue, it is not actually a matter of the real heat contributed by cities to the globe, which is trivial, but of the effect of urbanization on temperature measurements, leading to overestimation of nearby/wider temperatures.
So is this claimed effect of UHI supposedly a warming of SK as a whole, or a biasing of the readings, which needs to be backed out?
Philip Bradley says:
December 29, 2011 at 5:04 pm (Edit)
What this study shows is urban warming was approximately double non-urban warming.
A different conclusion from the findings is that a local/regional effect causing warming is twice as strong in the urban areas compared to non-urban areas.
Hint – reduction in aerosols.
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it depends on the aerosols. But yes, some aerosols released in the city can cause a local
warming, however, it’s not been identified as a major contributor in all cases.
Wow, between UHI effects and the “greenhouse effect” seems there’s little left for ocean cycles or solar cycles. Suggest they check their numbers and assumptions…
“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.”
it depends on the actual configuration of the LCZ. In places like downtown tokoyo anthropogenic heat can be as much as 50% of the effect in certain seasons. You cannot tell simply by looking at national figures but you have to look at the energy used in the vicinity of the station versus other factors.
Not simple
Steve Mosher,
Reductions in aerosols and the consequent reduction in aerosol seeded clouds affects in particular Tmin, especially Tmin in winter.
This is because Tmin is sensitive to changes in early morning insolation and in winter the effect is stronger due to the longer period that solar radiation passing thru the atmosphere at a low angle prior to Tmin is affected by the presence/absence of clouds. Tmin occurs later after dawn in winter than in summer.
I think you will find that most of the ‘warming’ in S Korea is in Tmin, especially in the winter.
Note this mechanism is separate To UHI.
The industrialization of S Korea has completely eliminated the domestic burning of coal and biomass which would have been the primary means of heating and cooking at the start of the study period (1950s) and the major source of aerosols. Its a common misconception that industrialization increases aerosols. It doesn’t. It progressively reduces them, primarily by replacing domestic burning of coal/biomass with electricity/gas.
So UHI is the biggest part, and the other part is all the adjustments cooking the books, er, global warming 😉
Looks to me like we’ve got a nice paper there…
Has anyone looked at the air temperatures recorded at the tidal stations at the 14 sites around Australia. The data at the National tidal center looks at first glance to suggest no warming of the air temperatures at these sites for up to 18 years. Could someone work out a trend line for me ,as the BOM will not do it. Could the data be put up on this site—-
Eric (skeptic) says:
December 29, 2011 at 4:35 pm
First, Eric, thanks for checking my work by running the numbers yourself. It is an excellent habit to have, I commend you and encourage others to do the same.
I used the total primary energy for Korea from the BP Statistical Review. It breaks down like this, in million tonnes of oil equivalent.
Fuel Type, MTOE
Oil, 105.6
Natural Gas, 38.6
Coal, 76.0
Nuclear Energy, 33.4
Hydro electricity, 0.8
Renewables, 0.5
Total, 255.0
Thus, the oil is less than half of the fuel consumed. So your number starts out low by a factor of 2.
Next, according to BP the total South Korean oil consumption is 2,384 thousand barrels per day, which is about 870 million barrels per year. This means that your figure is also low by a factor of about 10.
Between the two, your numbers seem to be about 20x too low.
Thanks,
w.
cgh,
“KevinUK, squid fishing nets. They use lots of small lanterns”
They must do an awful lot of squid fishing in South Korea then but presumably the North Korean’s aren’t as partial to squid or maybe they fish for their squid in South Korean waters?
Having said that I found this image on Panoramio – http://www.panoramio.com/photo/51387339
Funnily enough I first thought it might be down to flaring so Googled ‘South Korea off shore oil fields’ which didn’t turn up any significant hits, so it does look plausible at least that those off shore lights could be down to squid fishing.
Not sure how they look for UHI for HadCrut and Best, but maybe it would make more sense to eliminate any UHI for each set of data first before they extrapolate a temperature for the whole planet?
Anthony commented on how useful it would be to get data for North Korea. In fact there are data for both North and South Korea in the NCDC data base. I’ve done a quick analysis using these data which you can see at:
http://www.climatedata.info/Discussions/Discussions/opinions.php
This analysis does not show any difference in rate of temperature increase between the two countries.
That’s Seoul and surrounding areas. Now you know why a sabre rattling NK scares them so much. Seoul is within artillery range of the DMZ.
GHCN has North Korean data. Also GISS. Most of the series are not updated after 1980, but Pyongyang and some other cities are. While Pyongyang may not be “nights light” urban, it is still a fairly large city.
Sorry, KevinUK, for some reason I missed the lights out to sea completely. I see that cgh explained them as fishing fleets. Japanese fishing fleets are quite extensive, and have caused UFO scares when observed from the air on trans-Pacific flights.
Bill says:
December 30, 2011 at 10:25 am
Not sure how they look for UHI for HadCrut and Best, but maybe it would make more sense to eliminate any UHI for each set of data first before they extrapolate a temperature for the whole planet?
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that is exactly what best have done.
Philip Bradley says:
December 29, 2011 at 9:03 pm
Steve Mosher,
Reductions in aerosols and the consequent reduction in aerosol seeded clouds affects in particular Tmin, especially Tmin in winter.
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it depends. It depends upon the type of aerosol, depends on the winds.
when you have some data on Korean and more than speculation, I’ll read.
I have no time for armchair science
R. Gates says:
December 29, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Wow, between UHI effects and the “greenhouse effect” seems there’s little left for ocean cycles or solar cycles. Suggest they check their numbers and assumptions…
#####################
hehe.
good one. Maybe they will define the LIA out of existence