Centennial- to millennial-scale climate change since the last glacial needs to be revealed to improve the overall predictability of future environmental change. Special attention has been paid to short-term climate oscillations because they usually occurred rapidly enough to cause noticeable change in the average expected lifespan of human. Recently, short-term climate change during the late last glacial was successfully reconstructed from Hanon maar paleolake in Jeju island. In this study, centennial- to millennial-scale climate signals transferred via atmospheric teleconnection were detected for the first time in South Korea. Possible future presence of abrupt climate shifts such as Younger Dryas or 8.2 ka event would not seriously influence the Korean peninsula, especially not Jeju island, due to the Kuroshio warm currents. The study of climate variabilities in Korea could provide essential paleoclimatic information for the entire East Asian monsoon region since the climate of the Korean peninsula is driven significantly by coupled land-atmosphere-ocean dynamics.

• 박정재(서울대학교 지리학과 및 국토문제연구소) | Jungjae Park Correspondence