Soil temperatures in four metropolitan cities of Korea from 1960 to 2010: implications for climate change and urban heat

• Published in: Environmental earth sciences Vol. 71; no. 12; pp. 5215 - 5230
• Main Authors: Cheon, Jeong-Yong, Ham, Bong-Sik, Lee, Jin-Yong, Park, Youngyun, Lee, Kang-Kun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 01.06.2014; Springer Berlin Heidelberg; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Air temperature; Anthropogenic factors; Biogeosciences; Cities; Climate change; Coastal; correlation; Correlation coefficient; Correlation coefficients; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Engineering and environment geology. Geothermics; Environmental Science and Engineering; Exact sciences and technology; Geochemistry; Geology; Global warming; heat; Hydrology/Water Resources; Latitude; Marine and continental quaternary; Original Article; Pollution, environment geology; Rural areas; soil air; Soil temperature; Soils; Surficial geology; Temperature; Terrestrial Pollution; Time series; Trends; Korean Peninsula; South Korea; Far East; Asia; Korea; Urbanization; Climate change; Global warming; Time series analysis; Air temperature; Soil temperature; time series analysis; latitude; air; human activity; urbanization; depth; global warming; temperature; soils; rural areas; correlation coefficient; climate change
• ISSN: 1866-6280; 1866-6299
• DOI: 10.1007/s12665-013-2924-8

This study was conducted to reveal the trends of the air temperature and soil temperature for 51 years (1960–2010) and their relationship in four of Korea’s largest metropolitan cities (Seoul, Incheon, Busan and Daejeon). Also, the trends of the air and soil temperatures between the studied metropolitan cities and a rural area (Chupungryong) were compared to examine the effect of urban heat. Among the metropolitan cities, the long-term mean soil temperatures (depth 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 3.0, 5.0 m) were lowest (13.34–14.80 °C) in Seoul and highest (16.24–16.54 °C) in Busan, which is mainly the effect of the latitude. The soil temperature exponentially increased with depth in the three cities except for Busan and was closely related to the air temperature. The soil temperatures responded well to the air temperature change (maximum correlation coefficients 0.88–0.98) but this response was slightly delayed with depth. The air and soil temperatures increased at the rates of 0.24–0.40 and 0.11–0.73 °C/decade, respectively, for the period. The increasing rate of the soil temperature was the largest in Daejeon as 0.39–0.73 °C/decade, which was almost 2–4 times greater than those of the other cities (0.11–0.40 °C/decade), and it rose with depth. The increase of the soil temperature was coincident with the increase of the air temperature, which indicates that the soil temperature was largely affected by the increasing of the air temperature. In contrast, the increase in air temperature in Chupungryong (0.06 °C/decade) was significantly lower than in the metropolitan cities. In addition, the increase of the soil temperature in the rural area (0.13 °C/decade) was also much lower than that in the inland cities (0.20–0.27 °C/decade) while it showed no substantial difference from that in the coastal cities (0.11–0.15 °C/decade). Therefore, it is inferred that the soil temperature of the metropolitan cities increased with the increase of the air temperature due to global warming as well as the anthropogenic urban heat.