The purpose of this study is to extract climate factors affecting sweet persimmon yield by growth period and estimate the rate of future sweet persimmon yield using data of production and cultivation area of sweet persimmon and climate data for 1998-2015. During the analysis period, the cultivation area of sweet persimmon in Gyeongnam has been consistently decreasing, but sweet persimmon yield has increased. Climate factors that have statistically significant effects on sweet persimmon yield are mean temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, precipitation days, and sunshine hours. The sweet persimmon yield is a statistically positively correlated with temperature and sunshine hours and negatively correlated with precipitation during the flowering period (April to May). The sweet persimmon yield is statistically positively correlated with precipitation in the growing period (June to August) and negatively correlated with temperature in maturity period (September to November). Future sweet persimmon yield is estimated to have a steadily decreasing rate of change in future climate change scenarios, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5.

This study was aimed to analyse spatial patterns of the monthly amounts of damage by heavy snowfall in Korea using damage data of disaster yearbook at all cities and guns(country level) in Korea during 1980-2014. Most damages by heavy snowfall happened in January, followed by March, December, February, and November. The spatial distribution of snowfall disaster areas by themselves represented a strong spatial positive autocorrelation. The local spatial autocorrelation is drawn by the LISA cluster map. The distribution of snow disaster area is not independent of a spatial context within geographic limits, forming a spatial cluster. We examined the synoptic scale situation in monthly extreme events of damage by heavy snowfall based on composite analysis. The result shows the snowfall disaster is characterized by low pressure in January. The snowfall disaster in February is characterized by easterly wind. The snowfall disaster in March is mainly due to low pressure. Westerly wind with west-high and east-low pressure system pattern is predominant in December.

High temporal resolution precipitation data can provide information about rainfall intensity, and can better reveal the essential physical process of precipitation intensity than daily totals do. Using hourly precipitation data at 14 stations during 1961-2014, the changes in the characteristics of summer precipitation in South Korea analysed. Although the precipitation amount in summer has increased at all stations, hourly precipitation in summer shows different directions and magnitudes of changes at each station in South Korea. Results showed that the change pattern of hourly precipitation is mostly attributed to change in the frequency of hourly precipitation of 10mm or more.

Extreme temperature has direct and indirect effects on Human Health, and usually influences negatively. This study analyzes the correlation between extreme temperature and excess mortality caused by cardiovascular disease in Seoul. Excess mortality correlates with daily maximum temperature, especially daily excess fatality over two standard deviations, has a strong positive correlation. On the other hand, daily minimum temperature is not significantly related with excess death. Recently, significance of the correlation coefficient of high temperature in August decreases because of the heat wave preparation.

In this study, spatio-temporal distribution was analyzed with the number of days for summer heat wave and winter cold wave defined as three or more consecutive +5% quantile days and -5% quantile days, respectively, by using daily maximum temperature in summer and daily minimum temperature in winter during 1973-2015. Although monthly heat wave occurrence has been only concentrated in July and August during the 1970s and 1980s, it had further extended into June and September since the 2000s. Monthly cold spell occurrence has been distinguished by increasing occurrence ratio in the month of December since the 2000s. The occurrences of heat waves were classified into either strong or weak cluster depending on intensity and magnitude over the entire region of South Korea rather than in specific areas. On the other hand, the occurrences of cold spell were classified by intensity of cold spell and spatial distribution of dominant cold spell areas over South Korea.

Anomaly high temperature caused by constant global warming has a direct impact on the thawing of the Arctic and Antarctic Ocean. This suggests new opportunities for alternative Northern Sea Routes that were not an option before, due to the economic feasibility. The current study reviews the existing research work on this issue over the world. Results indicate positive possibility of Northern Sea Routes (NSR) from the decrease of distance. But if the ice-breaking, the toll of NSR and the potential environmental risk are still high, the NSR has not economic profits compared with the existing routes (via Suez, via Panama). This study suggests the research direction for the economic investigation of the Northern Sea Routes.

This study was aimed to investigate the spatial distributions and temporal changes of disaster areas due to heavy snowfall at all cities and guns (country level) in Korea during 1979-2014. The number of days of damage caused by heavy snowfall has increased, and amounts of damage also increased. However, the number of casualties by the heavy snowfall damage has decreased in the deaths and missing. Although the damage by heavy snowfall was concentrated in Gangwon Yeongdong region during 1980s, the damage had extended to the eastern coast of Gyeongbuk region, Chungcheong region, and the western coast of Jeolla region in 1990s. In 2000s, the damage was largely concentrated in Gyeonggi region, Chungcheong region and the southern part of western coastal area while the damage in the surrounding regions of the Taebaek Mountains were dominant during the early 2010s. The spatial and temporal patterns of the damage caused by heavy snowfall have changed over the study period with the decadal variations.

In this study, the relationships between the wheat imports of South Korea and the climate of wheat production areas (the United States is selected as an example) during 1995-2014 are analyzed. While the wheat imports in South Korea have increased in the second half of the analysis period compared to the first half, wheat imports from the United States have decreased somewhat in the second half than the first half. The unit cost of wheat import from the United States is unstable in the second half due to the increasing tendency of unit cost of wheat imports since 2007 and the enhanced variability. Wheat yields of Kansas (winter wheat) and North Dakota (spring wheat) in the major wheat growing regions in the United States are affected by precipitation during growing period and high-temperature condition before harvest, respectively. The unit cost of wheat imports from the United States to South Korea was caused by the impact of fluctuations in precipitation of Kansas, rather than temperature condition of North Dakota.

In this study, we examine the relationship between climate change and food productivity using empirical econometric methods. The existing literature shows that natural hazard caused by climate change has a negative impact on food productivity since the natural disaster devastates farmers and food supply. The conventional study however considered only the correlation between food productivity change and climate condition such as optimum air temperature rather than the association between food productivity and climate change. Agricultural area, crop per unit area and crop productivity are known as the most important factors in food productivity. Thus, we explore the relationship between the three factors and climate change. We analyze the carbon dioxide concentration level in the atmosphere as a proxy for the climate change since the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affects global temperature. We found that agricultural area, crop per unit area and crop productivity are negatively associated with climate change.

The extreme weather conditions negatively affect the traffic flow performance, and the change of traffic systems has significant impacts on the air pollutant emission. This study identifies the correlation between rainfall, traffic volume, travel speed and air pollution concentration (NO2 and PM10) in Seoul. We employed a path analysis using rainfall data from Korea Meteorological Administration and Seoul’s air quality and traffic monitoring data in July and August on 2014. It is found that the occurrence of rainfall decreases NO2 and PM10 concentration due to the higher washing effect, while rainfall increases NO2 and PM10 concentration via the changes in traffic volume and traffic speed. The analysis of the rainfall intensity reveals that the rainfall increases NO2 concentration due to the traffic volume increase and the traffic speed reduction if an hourly rainfall is more than 5mm. It is to note that the current model succeeds in identifying the relationship between weather conditions, traffic flow performance and air pollution in a unified and consistent framework, which can be used for better predicting the changes in air pollution concentration.

This study aims to show that the change of damages and damage areas caused by typhoon has an impact on South Korea using the typhoon track data and the data of damages caused by typhoon. This study analyzed the frequency of typhoon, damages and the distribution of damage by cities. The damages caused by typhoon sharply increased and typhoon scale is intensified after 1990s. The frequency of typhoon which has an impact on South Korea is concentrated in August and September. The frequency of typhoon is stable in August but increases in September. The typhoon which passed by the South sea and the Yellow sea damaged South Korea, and the frequency of typhoon which hits the south coastal increased. During the latter half of the period than the first half of the period in August and September, the damage area expands and damage scale grows ‘W’. The damage area of typhoon which hits the South coastal expands during the latter half of the period than the first half of the period. The damage area of typhoon which passed by the Yellow sea moved to the West coastal. The damage area of typhoon which passed by the East sea decreased.

Change of weather disaster having occurred in Korea since 1960s was analyzed using newspaper articles recording objective facts and reflecting consciousness of the times. The analysis was carried out on 6 disasters: heavy rainfall, cold wave, heavy snowfall, typhoon, heat wave and drought. To focus on the events having great social impacts, articles were chosen among top articles on the front page and general page of the newspapers. Dong-A Daily News articles were sampled from 1960 to 2013, for 54 years. A total of 315 articles were analyzed, among which typhoon accounted for the largest proportion of 36%. Heavy rainfall, heavy snowfall, drought and cold wave followed typhoon, and the topics of heat wave accounted for the lowest percentage of 6%. Articles of typhoon and heavy rainfall accounted for 57%, which is more than half of all. Drought and cold wave are concentrated in the 60s to 70s, and heavy snowfall and heat wave have sharply increased since 2010, due to the tendency of global warming. Articles have decreased over time because the importance of those articles has declined as a result of social development.

This study was aimed to investigate the relationship between flood damage and rainfall in the downstream areas of Han River. We used flooding damage and daily rainfall data observed in the 12 downstream areas during 2000-2012. Rainfall variables were analysed which include total rainfall over the basin of downstream areas in the Han River for flooding periods, maximum accumulative rainfall over 1hours, 3 hours, 6 hours and 12 hours, and rainfall in the upper regions of the Han River. Flooding damages of the study areas have signiÿcant positive correlations with rainfall variables. The most significant variable that affect the amount of damage is 3 hour accumulative precipitation. It means that the more three-hour precipitation increases, the more the amount of damage also increases. We found that there is a high possibility of floods when a heavy rainfall day continues for more than 2 days by comparing heavy rainfall days between with and without flooding disasters. The possibility of flood decreases when interval of just before a heavy rainfall day and flooding period increase.

Development of the central nervous system (CNS) occurs normally in mammalian fetus despite lower temperature in the brain region than in the heart. To investigate the effects of temperature niche on the neural differentiation of stem cells in vitro, P19 embryonic carcinoma (EC) stem cells and N2a neuroblastoma stem cells were induced to undergo neural differentiation by retinoic acid and LiCl, respectively. The cells were analyzed for the expression of neural marker genes during 12 days differentiation. Although there were Map2 and NCAM expressions in both groups, no clear difference was found. Similarly, expression patterns of Tuj1 and NF-M were not different in both groups, showing more intensive staining patterns at day 12 than those at days 4 and 8, respectively. However, more cells expressed GFAP markedly at day 12 in 37℃ group. There was little expression of the above markers in N2a cells during differentiation except for Ngn2 and Tuj1. It was found that Ngn2 was expressed more intensely at days 6 and 9 in 33℃ group. Tuj1 expression showed a similar pattern to those of P19 EC cells. RT-PCR analysis also showed that the expressed transcripts did not quite different in both groups, although they were different among the days of differentiation. Thus, it appears that neural differentiation occurs normally with a slight delay and probably less cell death in the cells at 33℃ than that at 37℃.

This paper makes an estimation of the monetary damages caused by a snowfall-related natural disaster over the period 1985-2012. Economic damages are estimated for the disaster, employing economic, demographic and climate data with Tobit models for censored samples. This paper provides a basic framework for an understanding of natural disasters as an interaction between climate factors and socio-economic ones. However, it seems to true that frequent and/or more intensive weather-related natural hazards have happened over the study period, although some findings from this work could not definitely provide strong evidence for making a distinction between human-induced climate change and weather-related natural disasters.