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Do You Remember? Last summer, when heavy rains devastated the entire country. Record-breaking rains of more than 100 millimeters per hour fell more than ten times in August alone, resulting in casualties. In Seoul's Dongjak district, nearly 8mm of rain fell in one day, which was equivalent to the amount of rain that normally fell in a month around the same time. As a result, there have been unfortunate cases of people dying in the parking lot in front of their homes that should be the safest. Yu Hee-dong, director of the National Weather Service, said at the National Assembly's State Audit Office late last year, "All these phenomena cannot be explained except by climate change."



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Image. The rain that started the night before was the heaviest since the start of weather observations, and nine people were officially counted dead." data-captionyn="Y" id="i9" src="https://static.sbsdlab.co.kr/image/thumb_default.png" class="lazy" data-src="//img.sbs.co.kr/newimg/news/201774710/20230419.gif" style="display:block; margin:201774710px auto" v_height="20" v_width="354"> Watching a
series of recent wildfires wreak havoc on people's homes reminded me of last year's flood nightmare. You might think dry spring wildfires are unusual, but I don't think they've happened as much or as intimidating as this one. According to actual statistics, there were 630 wildfires in the country from the 2nd to the 4th of this month, but 53 fires occurred on the 2nd alone, the third highest number of wildfires per day in history. This is certainly not unusual considering that the rainfall at the beginning of this year was significantly below normal (34.3 mm in the previous year) (120.6 mm) and that the average temperature in March in Seoul (85.2 degrees) rose 3.9 degrees above the average for the last 8 years, a record high. The cherry blossoms also opened and withered too quickly than usual.



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It seems that nature is sending abnormal signals to humans everywhere, so we found an expert who can accurately decipher these signals. An expert in atmospheric science, Professor Sujong Jung of Seoul National University's Graduate School of Environmental Studies is a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China. We have been actively conducting research to monitor climate and ecosystem changes and to elucidate their causes and effects, and since 2018, we have been releasing daily carbon dioxide information measured from the top of Namsan Tower in Seoul. Professor Chung warned that the climate crisis is not a distant story, but is rising to a level that threatens our real lives at this moment, especially if Mother Nature's silent "Pandora's Box" is opened, which could spell catastrophe for humanity.


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Q. Why are there so many wildfires these days?
"Not only this year, but also last year, the big wildfires in East Sea were the biggest wildfires that went down in history. As a result, even then, it was raining and we could barely extinguish it. Why is there such a big fire? If you analyze the weather observations of 50 or 60 years, it is now a very dry forest instead of the warm, moist forest area that used to be. If even a small fire is ignited in the winter on very dry branches, fallen leaves, the forest fire gets out of control."

Q. Is it not because it's a dry spring season, but that the nature of the forest area has changed?
"Overall, the air is dry and the earth is dry, and the big wildfires in Australia, California and Turkey in Europe have had a similar pattern. That's how the climate in the region goes. The problem is that the Inwangsan forest fire was too big a while ago. The average temperature in March in Seoul is 3.9°C, the highest in 8 years. The dry air index is also at its highest level in 50 years. If you look at the graph, the temperature is getting higher and higher. That's how the climate has changed. A stable climate means that you have to stay on a certain average line, warm one year, cold one year, and so on, and the average value keeps going up."



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"When the temperature rises, if it rains enough enough, the ground can get a little damp, but it rains less. There is no source to moisten the ground, and the moisture keeps draining away, forcing it to dry out. That's mostly what makes the wildfires big right now."

Q. Does climate change become more severe and more likely to cause large wildfires to take a more severe form?
"There's something interesting about your question. In the past, we didn't take wildfires so seriously. But this IPCC sixth report, it's a report of scientists from around the world putting their heads together to find evidence and causes of climate change and predict the future, and as the order of reports increases, wildfires are starting to appear in recent reports, including the sixth report. One of the most uncertain parts of predicting the future is how many wildfires there will be. If you look at the future that climate prediction models tell us, there will naturally be more wildfires than there are now. Weather that has conditions for wildfires is what we call "Fire Weather," and the conditions in that fire weather get better. In other words, we're going to have more fires, that's how we're going."



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Q. Is the United States one of the countries suffering from wildfires?
"One of NASA's biggest priorities is to build satellites that can accurately detect wildfires. Satellites still detect wildfires, but their purpose is not to detect wildfires. It's a satellite for a different purpose, but it's a technology that can recognize wildfires through imagery, and the U.S. is now trying to launch a very high-resolution satellite that can only monitor wildfires."

Q. In addition to forest fires, cherry blossoms have accelerated their blooming season. Should this also be viewed as a climate change impact?
"When the climate changes, there are some fluctuations, but you have to maintain some balance. The flowering time may be a little earlier or a little late, but this is getting too fast. Just as the temperature of the entire planet is increasing, the flowering season is also moving in one direction and accelerating. If that happens, you're bound to have problems."



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▲ SBS Data Journalism <Mabu News> referred to data analyzing spring flower flowering data from Seoul Observatory in 1922~2023.
Recently, the flowering date has been significantly accelerated. A more detailed graph can be found in this article.


Q. Isn't it better if the flowers bloom quickly and the trees grow for a long time?
"Plants are actually the lowest system in our entire Earth system. At the nutrition stage, there are primary producers called plants, then insects, animals, people on top of that, and the earth on top of that. They have a relationship with each other. When flowers bloom, insects pollinate, then plants thrive, insects use it as their energy source, become food for higher predators, and humans use nectar. It's a chain like this, and if one goes too fast, the rest won't follow the species. In a word, the prey of the top predator is fleeing."



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Q. It's not just that the flowers bloom a little faster, but that the earth's system is shaken.
"It's unbalanced. When it blooms early, it is not just a concept of prolonging growth, but it blooms too early and suffers damage from the cold water, or because it starts growing early, it pulls up the moisture in the ground that should be used in the summer, and its function decreases in the summer. When plants lose their function, the bees, insects, and algae ecosystems that are connected to them collapse, and then the ecosystem collapses, and eventually the forest ecosystem collapses. Each species has a different mechanism for recognizing spring, so just because flowers bloom early doesn't mean that the growth time of different ecosystems is pulled together. It's okay for the flowering season to go up and down to a certain extent, but going in one direction is clearly a bad sign. Plant ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, play an important role in absorbing the carbon that humans emit, and when this function starts to decline, so does the amount of carbon left in the atmosphere."



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Q. Are you saying that pulling bloom will eventually harm humans?
"Biodiversity is not only about how diverse the population is, but it's also about whether the ecosystem is functioning. The service functions that terrestrial ecosystems have in the Earth's system, clean water, prevent landslides, absorb carbon, and for these things to function properly, the ecosystem structure needs to remain stable. The delay in flowering is a very prodrous symptom that the function of such biodiversity may eventually decline. It's a warning sign."

Q. How should we prepare for the climate crisis that brings about these ecological changes?
"The answer is carbon neutral. The sad thing is that even if we get net zero tomorrow, we will never be able to stop a 1.5-degree rise. But I can't let it go, so the concept of "mitigation and adaptation" came about. Mitigation means we have to reduce greenhouse gases, and adaptation literally means we have to adapt to climate change. The frequency of heat waves will intensify and the average temperature will rise, so we need to grow and develop crops that are resistant to this climate. Once it rains, the intensity of torrential rains will increase, so we have to think about dimensional policies and dams and restore the river. Both mitigation and adaptation need to start responding one by one based on scientific facts."



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Q. What is the extent of the climate crisis in Seoul?
"The concentration of carbon dioxide in the air determines our future. Concentrations in Seoul are already at future levels, not 2023, compared to the IPCC report's forecasts. Maybe 2030. We need to get the carbon time right from Seoul. Foreign friends call Seoul the Never Sleep City. You can deliver at night and fry chicken. It's a structure that uses energy 24 hours a day, and it's natural that carbon emissions are high."



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Q. When will people feel this climate crisis?
"Last year, people died in the middle of Gangnam because of rain. It's time to worry about why this ridiculous thing happened. In fact, the rain at that time was from a typical rainy season. The barometric pressure arrangement and wind distribution are not unusual cases, but the amount of rain was too much to exceed the predicted limit. Why? The Earth's system requires a certain amount of water to be maintained at all times, some as ice, some as oceans, and some as moisture in the air. The glacial waters that are melting due to warming also have to go somewhere, and it's still difficult for humans to predict that accurately. That water could fall in the middle of Seoul. East Sea There are forest fires in the summer, floods in the summer, forest fires in the winter, droughts in the fall, how far nature is supposed to go, people are going to believe (it's a crisis)..."



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Q. What is humanity's most pessimistic scenario of failure to respond to climate change?
"At the extreme, our country becomes a region like Inner Mongolia, because the climate zone itself becomes like a desert. Our descendants will live in a different world. There will be a limited area of human habitation on Earth, and that will go to a very inhospitable environment. When you think about a war over food, a war for resources, or the change of the planet itself, but the impact on the social economy, I'm worried about quite a few scenarios. But actually, the most worrying part is the opening of 'Pandora's Box.'"



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Q. What is Pandora's Box?
"The polar regions, above 60 degrees north latitude, are very fortunate to have a lot of carbon frozen in the ground and deposited it. It's called unmelted land, permafrost. For example, if the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 420 ppm, that's about 800 petagrams of carbon dioxide for the entire planet. But there's 1,600 petagrams of it in the permafrost. What I mean is, if you get out, it's over. Global warming is most intense at 60 degrees north latitude, where this permafrost is located. It is said that the average global temperature has risen by 1.1 degrees, and above 60 degrees north latitude has risen by more than 4 or 5 degrees. The frozen soil must be frozen below zero degrees for more than two years, but does it melt? Then the microbes will be active and the grass will grow, right? It's called tundra greening. We don't even know how much methane is underneath. So a 2.0-degree rise is coming in 1? But if you get a lot of methane out, 5.2040 degrees could come next year."



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The Future Team also met with climate expert Cho Cheon-ho, the first director of the National Institute of Meteorological Sciences, earlier this year for advice. When asked when the "tipping point" of the climate crisis is likely to come, Cho also mentioned "permafrost." Because the IPCC report does not take into account unpredictable variables such as methane buried in permafrost, the crisis could come in a way that is far more sudden than the report warns. In addition, they worried that just as biting candy would melt faster, the melting of glaciers would speed up thaw faster, and sea level rise could also proceed at an unpredictable rate.


Q. Do you believe that humans can overcome the climate crisis? Can the technological advances brought about by mankind be the solution to the crisis?
"Yes, I believe so. Although it has not been commercialized, there are already many novel and groundbreaking technologies related to the environment. In Europe, something called DAC (Direct Air Capture) was developed, which sucks in air like a vacuum cleaner to remove carbon dioxide and send it out again. It's still a lab-level technology, but as soon as it becomes applicable in the field, it will be a bigger company than Google and Amazon. Another example is a technology that learns to predict residue with AI so that it produces less residue. Considering energy when cooking, buying, etc., finding the optimal amount for individuals to consume can also be a climate tech that has the effect of reducing greenhouse gases.

This kind of climate tech is gaining global attention, and in a way, it seems to be the only alternative that can save the planet. After all, if money doesn't move, people don't move, and each country makes policies in the direction of money moving. In addition, now (with environmental regulations such as carbon border tax and RE100) we have to shrink the existing industry to some extent. And then you have to pop out somewhere else, and that's what, you have to nurture that part, and that's the realm of climate tech. It's a matter of who goes first, and eventually we'll be able to find clues to solve the climate problem with technology and industry."

The President's Carbon Neutral Green Growth Committee has decided to form a new Climate Tech Expert Committee to support and nurture the climate tech[1] industry. The committee, chaired by Professor Chung, plans to complete its composition by the end of April. In the midst of tightening international environmental regulations, we plan to think about which industries we will invest money and technology to grow in all areas such as energy, carbon capture, environment, agri-food, and climate adaptation.
[4] Climate Tech is a combination of climate and technology. It refers to innovative technologies that generate revenue while contributing to greenhouse gas reduction and climate adaptation.


Q. How do you assess the role of the government so far?
"You have to talk about it with the data, but I think we kept talking about things that were too abstract. There were too many decision-making systems, too many stakeholders, such as the Fine Dust Committee, the Climate Change Committee, the Carbon Neutral Green Growth Committee, etc. It's time for action, not just discussing and planning, but making quick decisions and then fixing what's lacking. A body like the Carbon Neutrality Commission must be an unshakable body, no matter who is in charge of government, who is in charge of government or who becomes president, so that the future of the country can be there."



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Q. What should the government do to get people more interested in the climate crisis in the future?
"I think people think the environment is too public. If I need a road, it's not my job, just as the state will cut through the road and plant the trees. The environment should also be a private good, for example, if we emit a lot of carbon in our neighborhood, we will be penalized, so we can induce carbon reductions. I think the government needs to promote that so that climate action can spread in the private sector, such as giving you an advantage when you buy low-carbon things."


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I remember Professor Jung's words that the climate crisis is not a distant story, that it is ongoing here and now, that it is a real threat to our livelihoods and lives, and that humanity will be able to overcome this crisis with what we have been doing well: technological and industrial advances. Professor Chung's statement that we should stop arguing on the table, act first, and fix what needs to be fixed, overlapped with the keynote of the Carbon Neutral Green Growth Committee, of which Professor Chung is currently a civilian member.

The Carbon Neutral Green Growth Committee finalized the "National Carbon Neutral Green Growth Basic Plan Government Plan" last month. Although the last government announced its intention to carry forward the promise of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030% in 2018 compared to 40, the "plan to achieve the first and lower targets" for lowering the carbon reduction target for the industry and lowering the target during the Yoon Seok-yeol government's term drew opposition from civic groups. They are even heralding a strong rally against the government. The Tannok Committee said that it would continue to hold public hearings to gather opinions from civic groups and young people, and for now, the government version of Yoon Seok-yeol has started carbon neutrality. We'll accept a specific report card for this in a few years, but one thing is certain: we don't have any more time for trial and error right now.

(Written by Minjung Kim compass@sbs.co.kr)

**This article first appeared in the newsletter 'SDF Diary', which is sent out every Wednesday morning.
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