Projection of Future Heatwave and Its Potential Exposure in Korea

Abstract:

South Korea has suffered from heatwave in summer since several decades. 1994, there were more than 3,000 victims due to the extreme heatwave event. This study will cover the projection of heatwave in Korea with RCP scenarios from NCAR's CESM model. The climate model outputs have been dynamically downscaled with 7.5 km spatial resolution by WRF model. And the model bias has been estimated and corrected with meteorological measurements network in Korea.

We also analyzed the exposed population to heatwave in the future with sampling of population data of local government and the model grids, which can help the climate change adaptation policy for the future.

Based on RCP 4.5, the areas of heatwaves in summer will be extended by more than 200% in 2050 comparing to year 2006 and the frequency of the heatwave event will be increased dramatically. The population exposure to heatwave will also be increased by more than twice.

Such analysis will be compared with other climate scenarios from different climate model, and the changes in mortality rate of Korea need to be estimated.