Around March 20, the north China suffered from a strong sandstorm never seen in the past ten years with sand granules and floating dusts to affect even the south of the Yangtze River. The beginning of April saw a strong cold gale and a warm-humid air current sweep the greater part of China, causing light, medium and heavy rains in the country with some parts visited by storms and hails. In the meantime, it saw again sandstorms in the northwest, north and northeast China. This is a natural phenomenon rarely seen in early spring in China, pointed out the expert.

These unusual natural phenomena are closely connected with the global changes of the weather tending to be warm.

China has just spent the second warmest winter ever occurred over the past 50 years, pointed out Lu Juntian, senior engineer with the China National Meteorological Center. The temperature in Beijing and Wuhan has reached the highest on the thermometer with some unusual phenomena even occurring on animals and plants. According to Lu Juntian, the recent 20 years have witnessed an average highest temperature on the whole globe and for China it has seen 16 warm winters on end ever since 1986.

The direct impact of the warm weather tendency upon China is the dryness in the three regions of northwest, north and northeast China and this is especially so in north China. From 1999 to 2001, the north China had suffered from serious droughts for three years in succession with many parts north of the Yangtze River to have been seized by droughts in spring and continuous dryness in summer in most of these areas. Whereas the areas along the Yangtze and Huai rivers suffered from droughts rarely seen in summer. Last July saw Lake Hongze, the largest water-source in the north of the Huai River go almost lakebed up with the mainstream of the Huai River stopped navigation.

As pointed out by the expert another consequence of the warm weather trend on the globe is the rising of the water-surface of the sea. As proved by the probing and monitoring in recent years the water-surface indicates a remarkable rise in the waters of China. There sees a gradual rise of the water-surface in the Bohai Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea every year with the water-surface in Tianjin, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Guangdong areas to rise faster than the average.

Half of the Chinese cities with over 40 percent of the population are concentrated in the coastal areas. The rise of seawater has not only eroded the seashores but also salified the farmlands there, causing great economic losses along the coastal regions.

The warm weather will further intensify the circulation of water, causing still greater changes in weather and climate, therefore, leading to frequent occurrences of extreme climatic happenings. China is located in the continental monsoon climate. With the global weather tending to be warm it will cause more complicated and drastic influence upon China, making the Yellow River to stop flowing, causing a series of unusual weather as storms, floods and frosts and snows as well as frequent occurrences and a yearly increase of serious natural calamities.

(People's Daily April 16, 2002)