The average annual temperature in southwest China's Tibet
autonomous region is rising at a speed of 0.3 degree Celsius every
ten years, higher than the growth rate of the country and world, a
latest research shows.
The "Tibet's Climate under the Global Warming Trend", conducted
by the the Tibet Meteorological Bureau, says the temperature rise
is most obvious in the west of the region, followed by its
southeastern part.
Tibet, with its glaciers and high altitude, has been regarded as
a sensitive region to the effects of global warming.
"The regional climate shows a warming trend under the global
warming background," said Zhang Hezhen, a senior engineer with the
bureau.
Currently, China's average temperature is rising at 0.4 degree
Celsius every 100 years, while a report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change showed the average surface temperature of
the globe has risen 0.74 degree Celsius in the past 100 years.
Eleven of the 12 warmest winters since 1850 occurred between
1995 and 2006, according to the IPCC.
Last winter, average temperatures in different parts of Tibet
were 0.5 to 2.8 degrees Celsius higher than normal years. The whole
region's average temperature was 1.6 degrees Celsius higher than
normal last winter.
The region's average temperature in the winters of 2006 and 2001
was 3.0 and 1.7 degrees Celsius higher than normal years. Four of
the five warm winters in the past 35 years in Tibet occurred after
2000.
In Lhasa, the average decade temperature had risen from 7.7
degrees Celsius in the 1970s to 8.4 degrees Celsius in the 1990s.
The rise is speeding since 2000, with the city's average
temperature in the past six years reaching 8.9 degrees Celsius.
(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2007)
