The Korean Peninsula Faces Heat, Crop Stress, and Import Risks in 2025

The summer of 2025 hasn’t peaked yet — but all signs point to a season that could surpass even last year’s record-breaking heat.

Meteorologists from Seoul to Geneva are warning that this year’s June-to-August period is likely to be not just hot, but historically so. The Korean Meteorological Administration forecasts a 70% chance that average temperatures will exceed historical norms, fueled by warmer-than-usual ocean waters and a stubborn high-pressure system parked over East Asia. European and U.S. climate models echo the warning, placing East Asia squarely in the global “heat belt” for the third consecutive summer.

In Seoul, the rising warmth has already arrived early. Spring blurred into summer without pause, and city officials are scrambling to retrofit cooling centers and revise power-use forecasts. In rural areas, farmers whisper about planting faster-growing crops and bracing for unpredictable rains.

But what lies ahead isn’t just a long summer — it may be a taste of a long emergency. As glaciers retreat thousands of kilometers away, new lakes form in their wake. Rivers shift course. Rain falls where it shouldn’t. And through it all, the question grows more urgent: 

In a world that’s getting hotter and more unstable, how will we keep food on the table?

Why This Summer Is Different

Summer 2025 is shaping up to be another chapter in a rapidly warming era. According to recent seasonal forecasts from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), above-average temperatures are expected across nearly all land regions between May and July — including large swaths of Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia.

In East Asia, the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA) projects that the June–August period is more likely than not to exceed average temperatures, with the probability of a hotter-than-normal summer reaching up to 71% by August. These forecasts are reinforced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which identifies a persistent warm anomaly in the western Pacific Ocean as a key driver. This anomaly is expected to intensify high-pressure systems over the region, a pattern known to trap heat over the Korean Peninsula and lead to prolonged heatwaves.

Sea surface temperatures — particularly in the tropical western Pacific — remain significantly above historical norms. Warmer ocean waters provide more latent heat to the atmosphere, altering large-scale circulation patterns and increasing the likelihood of subtropical ridging, a known cause of stagnation and surface heating. These dynamics not only raise air temperatures but also interfere with regular rainfall cycles, leading to a mix of droughts and localized extreme rainfall events.

Globally, 2024 ended as one of the warmest years on record, with ocean heat content at an all-time high. That accumulated energy has not dissipated; it is now pushing into 2025, raising the thermal baseline from which weather events emerge. The consequences are already visible: NOAA predicts widespread heat anomalies across most of the United States, while ECMWF projects similar outcomes across central and northern Europe, raising the risk of crop stress and water shortages even before the height of summer.

These conditions point to a world where climate extremes are no longer isolated — they are compounding. Warmer oceans, altered jet streams, and weakened monsoon systems are producing greater volatility in regional weather, not just elevated heat. As these trends converge, the stability of seasonal cycles — especially those essential for agriculture — is increasingly at risk.

Melting Glaciers, Shifting Waters: A Planet in Rearrangement

Thousands of kilometers from the Korean Peninsula, a transformation is underway in the coldest corners of the Earth. From the Alaskan coast to the Himalayas, glaciers that have stood for millennia are now shrinking at unprecedented rates. In their absence, new lakes are forming, rivers are shifting course, and ancient water cycles are being redrawn — often with far-reaching consequences for regions that rely on glacial melt for freshwater, agriculture, and seasonal climate regulation.

According to a 2023 study published in Nature, nearly half of the world’s 215,000 glaciers are projected to disappear entirely by the end of the century, even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C. Under current trajectories, over 75% of glacial mass in low- to mid-latitude regions could vanish. This retreat is not just a visual symptom of climate change — it is a planetary reshuffling of water.

The Himalayas, sometimes called the "Third Pole," are home to glaciers that feed rivers serving more than 1.5 billion people across South and East Asia. As these glaciers shrink, seasonal water flows become erratic: too much melt in early spring, not enough in late summer when crops are most water-dependent. In the Andes, Rockies, and Alps, similar patterns are emerging — early runoff, lower summer flows, and increased risk of both drought and flooding.

These disruptions ripple outward. Changing glacial dynamics can alter monsoon behavior, weaken snowpack-dependent irrigation systems, and destabilize ecosystems that evolved under more predictable freshwater regimes. In places like Canada and Alaska, the retreat of ice is also creating new habitats — rivers and lakes that could eventually support species like salmon — but such changes are uncertain and slow to mature.

Closer to the equator, warm air holds more moisture, but not always where it's needed. Rainfall extremes — too little or too much — become more common, challenging farmers who have long relied on seasonal timing. And as polar regions warm faster than the global average, the contrast between climate zones narrows, weakening jet streams and increasing the likelihood of stationary weather patterns — the kind that cause both record heatwaves and prolonged droughts.

The Earth’s hydrological systems — the ancient routes that move water from glaciers to fields, forests, and mouths — are being rewritten. And when water systems change, food systems follow.

A Hotter World, An Emptying Plate: The Food Crisis Has Already Begun

Source: Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) 2024.

The image of climate change as a distant threat is fading — and nowhere is this more evident than at the dinner table. From scorched rice fields in East Asia to wheat failures in the American Midwest and vegetable shortages in North Africa, the food crisis isn’t looming. It’s already here, and it's accelerating.

Global food prices have risen sharply over the past three years, driven by a convergence of conflict, economic volatility, and climate extremes. But increasingly, it is the climate signal that dominates. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), extreme weather is now the single largest driver of agricultural disruption worldwide, with prolonged droughts and heatwaves reducing yields across all major staples — rice, wheat, maize, and soy.

In 2023 and 2024, India restricted rice exports after erratic monsoons and scorching pre-harvest heat damaged crops. In the same period, Canada and the U.S. Midwest reported below-average wheat yields due to soil moisture loss and spring heat. Meanwhile, in East Africa, maize shortages were compounded by both drought and flash floods — weather patterns that have become increasingly difficult to predict or prepare for.

On the Korean Peninsula, the symptoms are subtler, but no less serious. Rice paddies in southern regions are experiencing shortened growing seasons, while heat stress has reduced productivity in highland vegetables like lettuce and spinach. Seafood harvests are shifting, too: warmer waters have pushed squid and mackerel stocks northward, reducing catches along Korea’s traditional fishing zones. And with South Korea’s food self-sufficiency rate below 50%, the nation remains deeply vulnerable to global shocks.

These changes are not temporary deviations — they are part of a new pattern. Higher average temperatures reduce yields for every additional degree of warming, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions where crops are already growing near their heat thresholds. At the same time, more intense rainfall events damage fragile crops and overwhelm irrigation and drainage systems. Livestock are not immune either: heat stress reduces fertility, increases mortality, and raises the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks.

At a systemic level, the world’s food supply chains — built on assumptions of climatic stability — are straining under the pressure. Storage, refrigeration, and transport infrastructure are all more vulnerable to extreme heat and storms, raising costs and increasing spoilage. And as smallholder farmers — who produce about one-third of the world’s food — struggle to adapt, rural economies and food availability are increasingly at risk.

Even in high-income countries, the ripple effects are being felt through food inflation, supply gaps, and greater reliance on imports. In lower-income regions, however, the stakes are far more immediate: food insecurity, malnutrition, and the growing prospect of climate-induced displacement.

Can We Feed Ourselves in a Climate of Crisis?

As the climate shifts, the old rules of agriculture — when to plant, what to grow, and where food comes from — are being rewritten. In response, governments, farmers, and researchers are racing to adapt. But whether that adaptation can outpace the speed of climate change remains an open question.

In some parts of the world, innovation is underway. Heat-resistant crop varieties are being tested across Asia and Africa. In South Korea, researchers are experimenting with shorter-cycle rice strains that can tolerate rising temperatures and irregular rainfall. Coastal regions are trialing salt-tolerant crops as seawater increasingly intrudes on farmland. And in urban centers from Seoul to Singapore, vertical farms and hydroponic greenhouses are being scaled up to localize food production and reduce climate exposure.

Technology alone, however, cannot compensate for shrinking harvests. Adaptation also demands policy shifts — from diversifying import sources to building regional grain reserves that can buffer global market shocks. In Korea, where over half the food is imported, calls are growing for a reassessment of food self-sufficiency, not through isolationism, but through strategic resilience: rebuilding supply chains, investing in domestic capacity, and rethinking diets to rely less on climate-sensitive imports.

Globally, there's increasing momentum behind climate-smart agriculture — farming practices that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while boosting resilience. These include soil carbon retention, regenerative crop rotation, and precision irrigation systems. But such transformations require funding, education, and political coordination — a tall order in regions already burdened by economic or geopolitical instability.

Meanwhile, the human dimension of food security cannot be overlooked. As prices rise, access narrows. Food inflation disproportionately affects low-income households, both in developed and developing countries. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the risk is not just higher prices — it's famine. For smallholder farmers, often the first to feel the impact of drought or flooding, a failed harvest can mean the end of their livelihood altogether.

The decisions made over the next decade — about land use, trade, innovation, and climate mitigation — will determine whether the global food system collapses under pressure or adapts in time. What’s clear is this: climate change is no longer just an environmental issue. It’s a question of who eats, what we eat, and how we survive.