Korea’s forests cannot outpace global warming: study

Migration of plant life lags behind swift climate shift

More than half of South Korea’s forests may be vulnerable to global warming, according to a study.

The prediction was based on the northward migration of global warming patterns, which are moving faster than the migration of tree species, according to Lee Dong-geun, professor of Seoul National University and Kim Jae-uk, student of doctoral course at Seoul National University.

To survive when the climate warms, trees need to disseminate to either cooler or higher sites. It takes about 100 years for a tree species to shift its natural habitat by 25 kilometers. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted global warming is currently moving northward at a speed of 150-550 kilometers per 100 years.

Through white birch and pine tree species "move" at a relatively faster rate, they are unlikely to overcome the speed of global warming. Meanwhile, it is impossible for fir and walnut trees to win the race, the study said. In addition, if the encroachment of a city isolates a stretch of forest, no movement of its species will occur.

The study said that after 50 years, 54.82 percent of the migration of South Korean forests is expected to fall behind the speed of global warming. South Korea’s southern region will likely be a subtropical climate zone by that time, the study warned.

Another research team, led by Korea University professor Son Yo-han, said that 30 percent of South Korea’s forests may fail to adopt to climate change by the year 2100. By then, the size of South Korea’s coniferous forests will have diminished by a third, the research said.

Lim Jong-hwan, a researcher at the Korea Forest Research Institute, said, "If this kind of ‘thermo-stress’ on the nation’s plant life continues for decades, there will be large-scale deterioration seen in Korea’s forests."

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