Abstract
To act and respond to the climate changes and to bring about power-saving in buildings, the changes in the atmospheric data in Korea are recorded and assessed. For the two regions representative of Korea, the data obtained from HadCM3 and actual data are compared and analyzed so as to concretely evaluate and confirm the changes taking place in the cooling and heating degree days in Korea. For the past 40 years, from 1996 to 2005, the number of heating degree days was on the decline and in the two representative regions, between 1980's and 1990's, the number of decrease in the heating degree days had been quite large. The number of cooling degree days showed a trend of increase since the 1970's and just as in the case of heating degree days, the extent of increase was quite large between the 1980's and the 1990's. The results of comparison of the number of heating and cooling degree days, one obtained from the "Korea Meteorological Administration" and another from the HadCM3 data (E127.5,N37.5,E127.5,N35), which is one of the ways of predicting the climate, showed similar trends in the number of heating degree days in the Yeosu area. However, in the case of the number of heating degree days in Seoul and the number of cooling degree days both in Seoul and Yeosu, the differences in the number ranged from a minimum of 300 days to a maximum of 1500 days. This could be attributed to the grid points used in the HadCM3, the differences in the values of latitudes and longitudes of these two locations considered in this study, topographical differences, heat island effect caused by population density etc. and while using the HadCM3, these variables factors must be taken into consideration.