Impact of urbanization on recent temperature and precipitation trends in the Korean peninsula

Abstract

Urbanization has a significant impact on climate in urban areas. In this study, we investigate urbanization impacts on temperature and precipitation trends in Korean peninsula based on statistical relationship between these trends and local population growth. We found that there is a significant positive correlation between temperature rise and local population growth, indicating that urbanization has a significant contribution to temperature increase in city climate. As for temperature, the population growth in Korean cities is positively correlated with precipitation trend. The positive correlation is higher during summer time when small-scale convective activity is dominant. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the correlation is significantly increased when stations in rural areas and small cities are excluded. Such nonlinear relation between precipitation and urbanization is also discussed.