It’s early December as I write this, and something very peculiar is happening to the climate in South Korea. The normally chilly but bright early winter mornings have been replaced by an eerie fog blanketing much of Seoul and surrounding areas. Mountain-tops are invisible, and lights a kilometre away struggle to pierce through the dreary mist. The grey, heavy smog is so dense that it looks like a warm duvet resting across the colourless buildings.
The obscure weather is also playing tricks with the mind. When the alarm rings at 8am, you double-check the time because the blue skies that usually greet you have been replaced by a perpetual twilight, not quite day or night. Readers who have seen the apocalyptic thriller Children of Men might better imagine the scene.
By lunchtime much of the fog has disappeared, but clearly the residents are concerned. In early November, the Korean online shopping mall and auction site Gmarket reported that sales of protective face masks “grew more than six-fold” in October as the heavy smog crept over the cities and countryside.
Late evening is the most spectacular time of the day, especially as the sun is setting behind the mountains along the west coast. The blue sky is chased away by the returning smog, which is painted a beautiful sandy colour by the sun as it disappears over the horizon. The sky, even for just a few memorable minutes, is a wonderful collage of light blue, orange, beige and sand.
However, as heavily reported in the media and justifying the worries of the population, the grey skies carry a far more sinister threat than just smog. The National Institute of Environmental Research confirmed that westerly winds from China are blowing toxic fumes to the Korean Peninsula.
Chosun Ilbo newspaper, which was reporting the presence of fumes in November, estimated that they would dissipate by mid-December. The paper explained that the concentration of “ultrafine dust particles is relatively high, containing high levels of heavy metals such as arsenic and lead.”
It went on to say that Chinese citizens heating their homes with coal in preparation for the winter season was the primary cause of the toxic fumes crossing the Yellow Sea. Readings at Mount Tai in China’s Shandong province appear to confirm that the coal is causing “concentration of ultra-fine particles to surge to 461 micrograms per square metre“ – more than nine times the acceptable limit in Korea.
The toxic fumes are also having a major impact on weather systems, driving the temperatures up and keeping the ground remarkably hard. Playgrounds, normally deserted as the bitter chill sets in accompanied by a few days of heavy snowfall, are still packed with roaring children.
December’s daily mean in Seoul is just a flicker above 0 degrees C, but by the end of the first week in 2013, temperatures in the capital were reaching as high as 10 degrees, a massive jump on the same period last year (approximately six degrees warmer). Winter is dry season, but even more so this year. The annual early winter snowfall never materialised apart from an irregularly large deposit in the far south of the country.
But it’s not just winter that has, so far, seen warmer than usual temperatures. The average summer high was nearly two degrees greater than in 2012, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). Morning lows of 21.7 degrees were the highest in nearly 40 years, while 45 areas across the country recorded daytime highs of 33 degrees or higher for over 18 days, the second longest hot streak in history. All told, this was the hottest summer ever since the formation of the KMA.
Good news for retailers and pharmacists, but not for the rest of the country. We basked in the glorious summer of 2013, but it looks like this winter might leave a worrying legacy.
Andrew Farrell works as an English language teacher in Korea.
