Report predicts extreme weather on China's Yangtze

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

BEIJING — Rising temperatures over the next few decades will unleash storms, floods and drought across China's Yangtze River Basin, a new report says, raising the prospect of catastrophe for a region that is home to nearly a third of the country's population.

While ecosystems along China's longest river are threatened by climate change, it's not too late to save them if proper mitigation measures are taken, said the report issued Tuesday by the environmental group WWF.

In the past two decades, temperatures in the river basin area have risen by an average of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius), causing a spike in flooding, heat waves and drought, said the report, the largest assessment yet on the impact of global warming on the Yangtze basin area, where some 400 million people live.

Data collected from 147 monitoring stations along the 700,000-square-mile (1.8 million-square-kilometer) area showed temperatures rose by 0.59 degrees Fahrenheit (0.33 degrees Celsius) during the 1990s. Additional findings show that between 2001 and 2005, the basin's temperature rose on average another 1.28 degrees Fahrenheit (0.71 degrees Celsius).

"Extreme climate events such as storms and drought disasters will increase as climate change continues to alter our planet," said Xu Ming, the lead researcher on the report, which included expert contributions from the China Academy of Sciences, the China Meteorological Administration and other academic institutions.

Over the next 50 years, temperatures will continue to climb by an average of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), which will only increase the frequency of natural disasters, the report warned.

The consequences of global warming are particularly dire for a region that contributes 35 percent of the nation's total grain production and 41 percent of China's gross domestic product. The region, which cuts across the length of China, is also home to rare and endangered species such as the giant panda and the Yangtze River dolphin.

Crops such as corn, winter wheat and rice will see clear drops in production, with the rice harvest alone dipping between 9 percent and 41 percent by the end of the century, the report said. Natural habitat such as grasslands and wetlands have receded steadily in recent years, while rising sea levels triggered by global warming will make coastal cities such as Shanghai more vulnerable.

Adaptation is a must for large developing nations such as China, which is particularly vulnerable to climate change because of its population, complex climate and relatively low level of economic development, said James Leape, director general of WWF-International, formerly known as World Wildlife Fund.

"While the whole world rises to meet the challenge of climate change, we must prepare for impacts that are already inevitable," he said.

Countermeasures include strengthening existing infrastructure — such as river and dike reinforcements, transport and power supply systems, the report said. Other steps include adjusting crop systems and switching to hardier strains. Early warning systems and emergency preparedness planning were also key, it said.

Leape said the urgency of climate change requires that world leaders gathering for a U.N. summit in December reach an agreement on a global framework on reducing the greenhouse gases that have triggered global warming.

"The next 40 days are of supreme importance. It's clear we will only get an effective response to climate change if the world's heads of state come together to forge a bold global agreement," he said.

He also said that China's President Hu Jintao and President Barack Obama have an opportunity to lay the groundwork for consensus when they meet at a major summit this weekend in Singapore and next week in Beijing.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...VUAy2QD9BSPSRG0

[Joseph & Ana 0]

Doesn't matter they can seed the clouds.

[Kevin and 10]

Doesn't matter they can seed the clouds.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091111/ts_afp/chinaweathersnow

BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese scientists artificially induced the second major snowstorm to wreak havoc in Beijing this season, state media said, reigniting debate over the practice of tinkering with Mother Nature.

After the earliest snow to hit the capital in 22 years fell on November 1, the capital was again shrouded in white Tuesday with more snow expected in the coming three days, the National Meteorological Centre said.

The China Daily, citing an unnamed official, said the Beijing Weather Modification Office had artificially induced both storms by seeding clouds with chemicals, a practice that can increase precipitation by up to 20 percent.

The office refused to comment on the report when contacted by AFP. On Tuesday, an official had said the storm was "natural".

City weather officials have previously said that such methods are aimed at alleviating a drought over much of north China, including Beijing, that has lingered for more than a decade.

But residents have griped about the flight delays, traffic snarls, cancelled classes and other inconveniences of a surprise snow storm, saying officials could warn them if they are planning to toy with the clouds.

Beyond the day-to-day hassles, experts said the weather manipulation had other undesirable side-effects in the longer term, the paper reported.

"No one can tell how much weather manipulation will change the sky," Xiao Gang, a professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the paper.

"We should not depend too much on artificial measures to get rain or snow, because there are too many uncertainties up in the sky."

Zhao Nan, a Beijing engineer, was quoted as saying the more than 5,500 tonnes of erosive snow-melting chloride used on city roads Tuesday -- nearly half the annual allotment -- could "erode steel structures of buildings".

In 2005, the snow-melting agent was responsible for killing 10,000 trees in Beijing and decimating 200,000 square metres (2.15 million square feet) of grassland, the paper said, citing official statistics.

Despite a massive effort to clear the capital of snow that involved over 15,000 workers, many roads remained blocked, while highways into Beijing and in neighbouring Hebei and Shanxi provinces were closed, state press reports said.

[justashooter 430]

obama signs accord in which china is exempt from responsibility

congress levies a tax on Americans to pay for it

accord arrangements put money in pockets of chinese fat cats

fat cats spend the money on hookers and new cars

chiese people still have ####### pollution

problem solved

[mawilson 2,133]

Billions of people are gonna die!!! Finally, yay.

[NickD 203]

Only difference between a forest and a dessert are trees. Watched a program on Discovery Science about how China is destroying their forest and way overdoing their crop land creating a dessert with major sand storms that are now hitting Beijing.

Is this global warming or poor land management? Same thing happened here in the 30's with dust storms throughout the midwest and back then, Gore wasn't around to invent global warming. Just poor land management. Same with the Sahara Dessert that was once a rich forest land, man destroyed that with no option to buy a hybrid car, least we have that option today.