[Teheran-ro] What a temperature graph doesn’t tell us

Climate change has been underway for a long time. We have grown used to the direction of that change: temperatures rise, summers grow longer, and winters shorter. But the impression you get when you look closely at recent climate data is different. The issue is not the direction of change, but the speed at which it is happening.
According to the report "113-Year Temperature Analysis of Korea" released late last year by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), the country’s annual average temperature rose from 12.0 degrees Celsius in the 1910s to 13.9 degrees in the 2010s, an increase of 1.9 degrees over about 100 years. Seen only from this long-term trend, climate change can look like a slowly unfolding phenomenon. But in the 2020s, the average temperature has already climbed to 14.8 degrees. In just a little over a decade, it has risen by an additional 0.9 degrees. The direction of change is the same, but the speed is entirely different. This shift in speed shows up more clearly in the distribution than in the breaking of individual records. Seven of the ten years with the highest annual average temperatures have occurred in the past decade.
This means we have moved beyond a phase in which hot years appear sporadically, into a structure in which high temperatures recur. That shift is even clearer in indicators that reflect what people actually feel. The number of days with heat waves and the number of tropical nights have increased by 16.9 days and 28 days, respectively. The remark that "it feels suffocating even at night" is no longer a matter of personal impression; it is a reality borne out by statistics.
Heat waves and cold snaps are no longer just weather you have to endure; they have become risks you must prepare for. The Government of the Republic of Korea and each local autonomous body now regard them as recurring disasters and are increasing disaster-prevention spending. The KMA is refining its warning system for heat waves and tropical nights, and is working to introduce a higher-tier emergency alert system for extreme, disaster-level rainfall.
But this change does not weigh on everyone equally. Public health and social studies point out that the risks from extreme temperatures are greater for older people, low-income groups, and those living in poor housing or energy conditions. Just as a day under the same heat wave is completely different in a home where the air conditioner can be turned on and in one where it cannot, the burden is unevenly distributed according to social conditions. The structural shift of population aging is another variable. In an aging society, disaster response becomes more difficult, and once a society enters a super-aged phase, existing response systems can be easily rendered ineffective. As the number of people with limited mobility and reduced ability to regulate body temperature grows, measures based on assumptions about a past era’s "average" household and "average" demographic structure are bound to show their limits. If the speed of climate change has shifted, the details of our response must also change. A temperature graph shows the average, but people do not live on the average. Preparation is no longer a choice; it has become a condition. What we need now is more finely tuned, detailed preparation.
spring@fnnews.com Reporter