[Herald Interview] Past climate forecasting, KMA seeks to empower local weather motion

Climate forecasting has turn out to be important to every day life, but local weather change is making it extra unpredictable than ever. Amid rising uncertainty in climate prediction, Chang Dong-eon, administrator of the Korea Meteorological Administration, believes that the company’s mission goes past delivering correct forecasts. It additionally goals to empower people to take local weather motion and to reinforce the nation’s total resilience in going through the local weather disaster, he stated.

“Simply this summer time, there have been as much as 16 instances the place hourly rainfall of as much as 100 millimeters was recorded. That is a particularly unprecedented case,” he stated in an interview with The Korea Herald. “Relying on how we reply to the local weather disaster to any extent further and into the longer term, I consider it’s the similar as placing our nation’s destiny at stake,” he stated.

Advances in expertise have strengthened the nation’s skill to handle weather-induced disasters, as forecasting depends closely on scientific strategies. Nevertheless, it’s the mixture of human experience, historic information and technological progress that improves forecast accuracy, enhancing the nation’s resilience to excessive climate, he stated.

At the moment, the KMA has round 1,350 meteorologists. That will appear to be so much, however they’re not sufficient in comparison with how powerful it has gotten just lately to foretell climate patterns precisely, he stated.

“Making climate forecasts isn’t based mostly on one’s intestine feeling. It’s strictly based mostly on science and expertise. With that being stated, the KMA wants extra analysis personnel who can develop superior scientific applied sciences, meteorologists in addition to an elevated price range in creating applied sciences that are key to predicting uncommon climate phenomena attributable to local weather change,” he stated.

A bigger price range for creating applied sciences which might be key to predicting uncommon climate phenomena and setting a correct response system towards local weather change can be wanted, as a result of Korea’s price range towards this space is considerably much less in comparison with different international locations such because the US, based on Chang.

“The distinction between the US’ whole price range on their response to local weather change and Korea’s is that total, the US price range is 13 instances greater than Korea’s price range,” stated Chang. “As for the price range per capita, there’s a 3.7-fold distinction.”

A brand new, never-before-seen response system towards local weather change is critical, now greater than ever. On Oct. 25, the KMA introduced that the Local weather Change Monitoring and Prediction Act would go into impact to assist Korea set up an in depth technique towards the results of local weather change and construct a scientific monitoring system towards the impacts that include local weather change within the coming years.

When requested how a rustic can higher prep itself for climate adjustments that include local weather change, the administrator stated that it’s critical for climate companies just like the KMA to “maintain eventualities that present how the local weather is at the moment altering and the way excessive climate occasions corresponding to international warming and excessive precipitation ranges are prone to change below present given climate circumstances.”

For instance, the Local weather Change Scenario Map, which demonstrates info relating to Korea’s local weather change scenario as a map, will likely be made accessible to the general public in December.

“Customers can search for local weather components, corresponding to temperature and precipitation, as one would usually use a map utility. It’s also intuitive, exhibiting future local weather change projections by area and visible info by distribution maps and graphs, he stated.

This map will be capable of be utilized in all components of society, from those that do analysis on related areas to these whose livelihoods rely on climate circumstances, corresponding to farmers.

“When most people’s understanding behind local weather change is excessive, policymakers may be higher monitored as as to whether they’re correctly implementing local weather change response insurance policies,” stated Chang. “People will even be extra empowered to take their measures of local weather motion, which is able to strengthen society’s total capability in responding to the local weather disaster.”

To higher reply to excessive climate occasions attributable to local weather change, the KMA has made and is constant to make technological enhancements to its climate prediction fashions.

Often known as the Korean Built-in Mannequin or KIM for brief, it’s Korea’s numerical climate prediction software, which processes massive quantities of knowledge in regards to the ambiance, oceans and land floor and applies complicated equations to foretell climate circumstances corresponding to wind, rain and temperature patterns to offer climate forecasts.

“The KIM at the moment ranks round fourth to seventh place on the earth by way of its accuracy and functionality in making correct climate predictions,” said Chang.

At the moment, 9 international locations on the earth possess their numerical climate prediction software, together with Korea. In line with Chang, Korea has additionally performed official growth help packages in international locations corresponding to Cambodia to offer meteorological help to strengthen its capability for local weather change response and to scale back pure catastrophe dangers.

“Whereas the KIM was developed based on Korea’s climate traits, it has just lately gotten much more tough to make correct climate predictions attributable to unprecedented climate circumstances corresponding to unpredicted, record-breaking rainfalls,” Chang talked about. “Due to this fact, the KMA is trying to implement varied technological developments (apart from the KIM) corresponding to synthetic intelligence-based applied sciences to make its short-term forecast extra correct.” At the moment, the KMA points a short-term forecast of as much as 4 days, which is able to quickly be prolonged to 5 days by late November.

One such AI-based expertise is Alpha Climate, which the KMA developed collectively with the Korea Superior Institute of Expertise in 2021. Alpha Climate, programmed to foretell climate patterns based mostly on the KMA’s radar imagery knowledge from the final 40 years, can precisely predict climate patterns from six hours to as much as 10 days.

“As of now, (Alpha Climate) is able to producing a six-hour forecast of precipitation ranges in lower than 40 seconds,” talked about Chang.

Additionally essential to managing the impacts of local weather change embrace the provision of correct long-term climate forecast methods, corresponding to these forecasting six months to a yr forward. At the moment, the longest climate forecast that the KMA points is the three-month outlook, launched as soon as each month exhibiting the typical temperature and precipitation ranges for the following three months.

“Each the six-month and one-year outlook will likely be made accessible to the general public as a trial program from Dec. 23 this yr,” added Chang.

Nevertheless, of all the required applied sciences and abilities a state climate company should possess, Chang added that “constantly enhancing the capabilities of predicting irregular climate patterns” is crucial.

“I’ll work to ascertain a everlasting analysis group, tentatively named the Korea Institute of Numerical Climate Prediction, to systematically promote the development of numerical climate prediction instruments and forecasting expertise to enhance Korea’s skill to foretell irregular climate patterns,” affirmed Chang. “The KMA will even work to play a number one function in enhancing the nation’s capability to reply to local weather change by correctly monitoring and forecasting Korea’s standing associated to local weather change.”

Profile

Chang Dong-eon is the sixteenth administrator of the Korea Meteorological Administration and has been in workplace since July. Chang, who beforehand labored as a researcher for NASA earlier than becoming a member of the KMA as a climate researcher in 2001, labored to develop South Korea’s first climate forecasting system — often known as the Korean Built-in Mannequin or KIM — in addition to the Earthquake Early Warning system which sends alerts to related authorities when an earthquake is detected. Earlier than being appointed as an administrator, Chang served because the thirteenth vice administrator from August 2022.