New research undertaken by the Qinghai Provincial Climate Center has shone
light on the abnormal rise in temperatures experienced on the
Qinghai Plateau over the past decade with worrying extremes
frequently being reported, Xinhua News Agency reported on April
2.
This phenomenon is all the more significant since China is
currently battling climate change with Qinghai and the
Qinghai-Tibet plateaus particularly vulnerable to global warming,
noted Wang Qingchun, senior engineer with the Qinghai Provincial
Climate Center.
According to Wang, the annual average temperature of Qinghai
Plateau has risen consistently for 46 years, although the trend
worsened in the 1990s. The average temperature from 1998 to 2006
marked nine successive record increases, registering 1.5 degrees
higher than that in the 1960s.
Qinghai Plateau
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A characteristic of this trend has been the reduction of the gap
between traditionally warmer and colder areas. For example, the
colder north of the Qinghai plateau has seen its temperature
difference with the warmer south shrink with also less of a
temperature drop being felt at night-time or in winter.
From September 1998 to May 1999, the average temperatures
registered by 97.3 percent of meteorological observatories in the
province all broke existing records. In the second half of July
2000, most northern reaches saw unprecedented hot weather. Jainca
County saw a staggering 40.3 degrees Celsius during the daytime,
the first time the 40 degree barrier was topped in the plateau.
Wang revealed that studying the Qinghai Plateau's climate
patterns could help predict further temperature rises in the
Chinese mainland since the plateau’s particular susceptibility to
global warming places it five or six years ahead of the rest of
China.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, April 4, 2007)
