According to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change is already in progress around the world, and it is necessary to start mitigation and adaptation strategies for buildings in order to minimize adverse impacts. This article discusses the relevance of the recent IPCC Working Group III Report (Mitigation of Climate Change) for South Korea. The article then analyses future climate change trends for South Korea, employing the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios and the Hadley Centre climate change model data to predict temperature rises over this century. The results centre on two sites, Seoul and Ulsan, large cities in the north-west and south-east of the country, respectively. The climate trends are surprisingly different in magnitude. The results are discussed and degree-days for heating and cooling, the basic elements (temperature, solar irradiance, relative humidity and wind speed) for analysing building performance, are calculated.

The sky view factor (SVF) and sunshine factor (SF) of urban geometry have been shown to be useful indicators of the urban heat island intensity(UHII). The SVF indicates the shielding from long and short-wave radiation gains and losses, significant in the urban heat island effect(UHI). The SF also shows the amount of direct solar irradiance that can penetrate a canyon. This paper shows how the SVF and the SF values can be calculated from the hemispherical image by a simple model. The study also shows that although the SVF and SF are useful indicators of the urban heat island and assess the UHII in Manchester, UK and in Ulsan, South Korea. This study demonstrates that the SVF and SF analysis using the fish-eye image is a useful and practical tool for any geographical locations and buildings.