hankyoreh

Many domestic and foreign scholars have warned about abnormal climate changes this year due to a combination of global warming and the El Nino phenomenon.

Professor Byeon Hi-ryong of Pukyong National University said on January 1, "A drought that began last fall has been spreading to the Chungcheong areas, such as Boryeong, Daejeon, Cheongju, and Seosan, and north Gyeonggi areas, including Ganghwa," adding that "by April next year, the nation may be hit by a serious drought again."

Regarding reasons for this prolonged drought, Professor Byeon said that the causes have not been determined. He added that a cycle of drought taking place every six or seven years is slated to fall on 2007. The rate of water storage at 11 multi-purpose dams out of 16 across the nation is lower than the figure registered in previous years, while the nation’s reservoirs stand at about 70 percent capacity, 12 percentage points lower than usual.

"The autumn drought tends to continue until the next spring, and a drought stays for two or three years in general," said Professor Byeon. The government should give special news reports on drought conditions, added the professor.

Yun Won-tae, an official of the Korea Meteorological Administration, said, "As the expected rainfall for this winter is not much, it is not easy to predict the spring drought. More time and data are necessary for our forecast on the spring drought to be scientifically reliable." According to Lee Man-gi, head of the administration, it will review whether or not introduce the special drought news reporting by the second half of this year.

In the meantime, The Independent, a British newspaper, reported that the year 2007 will be the hottest year in history, which will have a huge environmental and human impact. Indonesia may be hit by drought, while California may be hit by disastrous flooding, it said.

Dr. Phil Jones, a climate expert in the U.K. and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, said in the British newspaper’s article that "El Nino makes the world warmer and we already have a warming trend that is increasing global temperatures by one to two tenths of a degrees celsius per decade. Together, they should make 2007 warmer than last year and it may even make the next 12 months the warmest year on record."

Dr. James Hanson, professor of Environmental Science at Columbia University in New York, warned in the article, "We just cannot burn all the fossil fuels in the ground. If we do, we will end up with a different planet. I mean a planet with no ice in the Arctic, and a planet where warming is so large that it's going to have a large effect in terms of sea level rises and the extinction of species."

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]