We examined long-term variations in sea surface temperature (SST) and annual amplitudes of SST around the Korean Peninsula. Two SST data sets with data periods of approximately 51 years and longer than 100 years, respectively, were obtained from the National Institute of Fisheries Science and Japan Meteorological Agency. SST of Korean waters clearly increased during last 51 years (1968-2018), which was 2.5 times higher than the global trend. This significant increasing trend was caused by the dominant increasing SST trend during winter. However, a negative and positive SST anomaly frequently appeared during winter and summer, respectively, in a recent decade. These features of seasonal SST variation have changed the annual amplitude of SST, and resulted in a drastically increasing trend after 2009. Using the longer SST data set, it was revealed that the decreasing SST trend in winter began in the 2000s and the increasing SST trend in summer bagan in the 1990s. During a recent decade, there was a distinctive SST increase in summer, whereas a clear decrease in winter. In summary, the annual amplitude of SST around the Korean Peninsula significantly changed from a decreasing trend to an increasing trend during a recent decade.