After record-breaking temperatures and a lengthy drought played havoc with the country’s power supplies and disrupted harvests last summer, China’s regions have been warned to prepare for more extreme weather this year.
At a briefing on Monday, Song Shanyun who is the spokesman at the China Meteorological Administration warned that China’s southern regions will see more persistent high temperatures and residents must be prepared and ensure that energy supplies are available to meet the summer demand peak, while he said northern regions need to prepare for heavy floods.
“At present, global warming is accelerating… and under the impact of climate change, the climate system is becoming increasingly unstable,” Song said.
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Last year, China was hit by a heatwave that lasted more than 70 days and caused damage to crops, dried up lakes and reservoirs and caused devastating forest fires throughout the Yangtze river basin. while in August, as many as 267 weather stations registered their highest temperatures to date.
A sharp drop in rainfall in the southwestern regions of Sichuan and Chongqing also forced hydropower facilities to cut output. Local industries had to restrict operations and electricity deliveries to the eastern coast were also affected.
Average temperatures in China over the whole of 2022 reached 10.5 degrees Celsius, 0.62 Celsius higher than average, Jia Xiaolong, a government expert told the same briefing on Monday, with mean temperatures in spring, summer and autumn at their highest on record.
Average rainfall in China last year was 5% lower than normal, he added.
Story was adapted from Reuters.
