China is facing hotter and longer heatwaves and more frequent and unpredictable heavy rain as a result of climate change, the weather bureau warned on Thursday, as the world’s second-biggest economy braces for another scorching summer.
In its annual climate “Blue Book”, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) warned that maximum temperatures across the country could rise by 1.7-2.8 degrees Celsius within 30 years, with eastern China and the northwestern region of Xinjiang set to suffer the most.
China describes itself as one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, and it is coming under increasing pressure to adapt to rapidly changing weather patterns and sea levels that are rising faster than the global average.
“China is a region that is sensitive to global climate change, a region where the impact will be significant,” said Yuan Jiashuang, vice-director of the CMA’s National Climate Centre, at a briefing.
She warned that if emissions remained high, extreme heat events expected to occur once every fifty years in China could happen every other year by the end of the century, and rainfall could double and become more unpredictable.
The weather bureau said on Thursday that it expects temperatures in most areas across China to be relatively high over the next few months, signalling a second consecutive summer of extreme heat.
“The weather is going to be different from previous years and there is more extreme weather now,” said Chen Yuhan, a resident of China’s commercial hub Shanghai, which saw above-38 Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit) temperatures on Thursday.
Prolonged heatwave may damage rice, cotton crops
China’s weather bureau warned on Thursday that a prolonged heatwave forecast in the country’s eastern, central and southern regions in July may hit production of rice and cotton, as extreme weather continues to threaten its food production.
“It is necessary to guard against the risk of yield reduction of cotton, early rice and late rice caused by high temperature and heat damage,” Jia Xiaolong, the CMA’s deputy director, said at a briefing. Summer temperatures in regions including Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Gansu and Ningxia are expected to be 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, the CMA said.
China is facing hotter and longer heatwaves, as well as more frequent and unpredictable heavy rain as a result of climate change, the weather bureau warned.
Record-breaking temperatures last month have already broiled key grain producing provinces in the northwest and east, forcing corn farmers to delay planting, while torrential rain in other regions flooded soybean and rice fields.
Extreme weather is hurting developing crops globally as the impact of climate change intensifies, with vast swathes of farmland in China, Russia, India and the United States experiencing extremely hot conditions and below-normal rainfall, squeezing world supplies and pushing prices higher.