China’s climate ranges from tropical in its extreme south, to subtropical and monsoonal, to cold and dry in the north, though the bulk of its heartland is temperate. Broadly, global warming will have a disproportionate effect in China’s north, where winters will become milder and summers longer and warmer. Over the past 60 years, China has seen an increase in average temperatures throughout the country, including central and south. Bucking the global trend, however, there has been a 50% decrease in extreme events like floods, droughts and severe storms, correlated with the weakening of the East Asian monsoon.
Sea level rise along China’s coast has been averaging 3.4 mm/0.13 in per year since 1980, giving an average increase of 7.5 cm/2.9 in in that time. Some areas, such as Hong Kong, have seen seal level rise of more than 10 cm. While harbors such as Shanghai, 3 m/9.8 ft above sea level, are not in imminent danger of being inundated, sea level rise does heighten the risk of catastrophic storm flooding.
Temperature anomaly in China.
Climate Action report card.
Agriculture in China has already suffered, and will suffer further with increasingly violent rain in the south, and decreasing rain levels in the north, as the tropical zone becomes wetter and the subtropical and temperate zones become more arid. At the same time, higher temperatures are likely to increase disease and pest infestation rates, lowering productivity.
Mid-20th century summer East Asian monsoon (left); current, weakening summer East Asian monsoon (right).
Modeled changes in 21st century drought index: decrease - drier; increase = wetter.
Increasing temperature and acidity in the oceans is putting major ecosystems like coral reefs in the South China Sea under severe stress, and lowering fish populations throughout the region. Combined with overfishing—China’s fishing fleet is considered one of the world’s worst offenders at poaching, as they pursue fishing grounds to augment their own—ocean productivity has been declining for several decades, and is likely to decline further.
Tomorrow: overview of climate change’s global impact.
Be brave, and be well. Especially now.
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