The Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) announced that it has, through domestic technology, developed a “KIOST Earth System Model” for accurate projection of the characteristics of future climate change, and produced related scenarios. With challenges and disasters due to abnormal climates across the globe, Korea now joins the international community in working to respond appropriately through precise projection of the future climate. 

  The earth system model is a powerful tool that can more precisely project the earth’s environment through numerical expression of all elements comprising the Earth’s ecosystems, such as plants, plankton and human activities, as well as larger elements of the natural environment including the ocean and atmosphere. The earth system model first appeared in the Fifth Assessment Report released in 2013 by the IPCC(*), a UN intergovernmental body that consults on climate change, but KIOST’s version is the first one to be used in Korea.
 * The “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC) is a UN intergovernmental body established in 1988, dedicated to providing the world with scientific analysis of causes and prospects of climate change. It has evaluated and published research findings every 5 to 7 years since 1990. These reports form the basis for discussion by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a UN entity tasked with supporting the global response to the climate change threat.

  Lee Jae-hak, senior researcher at KIOST, and his team developed the “KIOST Earth System Model,” which is regarded as significantly improving performance by addressing the excessive emphasis placed on sea surface temperature in the Antarctic Ocean by most earth system models, and produces a more realistic representation of the volatility of El nino (Figure 1). Furthermore, the climate change scenarios drawn by the KIOST Earth System Model project that when greenhouse gas emissions increase, the Korean peninsula region is affected beyond the worldwide average (Figure 2, Figure 3).

  These research findings from KIOST provide scientific evidence for the Sixth Assessment Report to be released in 2021~2022, thereby contributing to addressing global climate change issues.

  Kim Young-ho, senior researcher at KIOST who produced the climate change scenarios, said, “This performance is meaningful in that the KIOST Earth System Model was developed using domestic technology while other earth system models have relied on advanced nation technologies.” He added, “With enhanced performance, this model is very suitable for projecting climate on the Korean peninsula. KIOST will lead efforts for more precise prediction of climate change in this region of the world.”

  The KIOST Earth System Model was developed along with Yonsei University and UNIST, and sponsored by the National Research Foundation of Korea, through a project called, “Development of Climate Projection Simulator and Ocean Observation for an Integrated Climate Projection System.”