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South Korean Fans Bid Farewell to Internet-famous Panda

A convoy carrying giant panda Fu Bao leaves after a farewell ceremony at Everland amusement park in Yongin on April 3, 2024. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
A convoy carrying giant panda Fu Bao leaves after a farewell ceremony at Everland amusement park in Yongin on April 3, 2024. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
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South Korean Fans Bid Farewell to Internet-famous Panda

A convoy carrying giant panda Fu Bao leaves after a farewell ceremony at Everland amusement park in Yongin on April 3, 2024. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
A convoy carrying giant panda Fu Bao leaves after a farewell ceremony at Everland amusement park in Yongin on April 3, 2024. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)

Thousands of well-wishers gathered Wednesday to bid farewell to the first giant panda born in South Korea, Fu Bao, who left for China in a high-tech non-vibrating vehicle typically used for transporting semi-conductors.

Beijing has long used "panda diplomacy" as a form of soft power, and Fu Bao's parents -- Ai Bao and Le Bao -- were gifted to South Korea in 2016 by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Fu Bao -- which means "treasure that gives happiness" -- was born in 2020 and is a celebrity in South Korea, with her videos on the zoo's YouTube channel attracting around 500 million views, Agence France Presse reported.

The Everland amusement park, where Fu Bao lived, says approximately 5.5 million people -- around one-tenth of the entire South Korean population -- have visited the park to see her.

Thanks to her popularity, the number of visitors to Everland's Panda World doubled last year to 2.15 million, compared to 1.07 million in 2020 before Fu Bao's arrival, the theme park said.

Fu Bao welcomed her younger twin sisters last year, named Rui Bao and Hui Bao, whose births also triggered an outpouring of excitement online in South Korea.

Beijing only loans pandas to foreign zoos, which must usually return any offspring within a few years of their birth to join the country's breeding programme.

Under an agreement between Seoul and Beijing, Fu Bao's parents can stay in South Korea until 2031, but her twin sisters, like Fu Bao herself, must return to China before they turn four years old.

"Fu Bao left Everland at around 11 am," the zoo said in a statement, adding the panda will leave for China via the Incheon International Airport on a chartered plane.

Before leaving Everland, the panda bid farewell to some 6,000 South Korean fans at a brief ceremony.

She was moved on a special non-vibrating vehicle typically used for semiconductor transportation, the facility added.

Zookeeper Kang Cheol-won, who is famous in the South for his bonding with Everland's pandas and is widely referred to as their "grandpa", read out a letter at the ceremony, the park said.

Kang is accompanying the panda on the journey to China until Fu Bao arrives at the country's Shenshuping Panda Base in Sichuan Province, Everland said.

"You will be forever (my) baby panda, even after 10 or 100 years. Thank you for coming to grandpa. I love you Fu Bao," Kang said in his letter, referring to himself as her grandpa.

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Varieties

Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
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Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Climate change is driving changes in rainfall patterns across the world, scientists said in a paper published on Friday, which could also be intensifying typhoons and other tropical storms.

Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year's most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China's eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.

Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say.

Researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75% of the world's land area had seen a rise in "precipitation variability" or wider swings between wet and dry weather.

Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.

"(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods," said Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study.

"This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods."

FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMS

Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behavior of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.

"I believe higher water vapor in the atmosphere is the ultimate cause of all of these tendencies toward more extreme hydrologic phenomena," Sherwood told Reuters.

Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.

While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University.

"In general, warmer sea surface temperature is a favorable condition for tropical cyclone development," she said.

In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.

Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.

The decrease in the number of typhoons is due to the uneven pattern of ocean warming, with temperatures rising faster in the western Pacific than the east, said Feng Xiangbo, a tropical cyclone research scientist at the University of Reading.

Water vapor capacity in the lower atmosphere is expected to rise by 7% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, with tropical cyclone rainfall in the United States surging by as much as 40% for each single degree rise, he said.