Weather woes underscore dire need to adapt to climate change

The wide-ranging impact of the drought affecting southern parts of the country for the past three months has demonstrated China's urgent need to boost efforts to adapt to and take action against climate change, experts said.

The searing summer heat wave that started on June 13 in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River was the most fierce and prolonged since China established comprehensive meteorological records in 1961.

The amount of rainfall in the region has been the lowest since records began, dropping 48.2 percent compared to average rainfall during the same period in previous years.

"The fundamental cause is climate change," said Zhang Yongqiang, a researcher of hydrology and water resources at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"The rise in temperatures has caused hydrological and meteorological elements to become more variable, and some regions could experience a greater frequency of droughts or floods," he explained.

Zhang's research has uncovered a significant decrease in soil moisture levels over the past 50 years in many regions.

Climate change, coupled with the impact of human activity, could significantly elevate the risk of drought, he added.

Yuan Xing, dean of the School of Hydrology and Water Resources at the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, wrote in a co-authored research paper in 2020 that the risk of dramatic droughts will significantly increase, with the chance of occurrence projected to rise by 40 percent in the south of the country by the middle of the century.

China unveiled a national strategy on adapting to climate change on June 13. It underscores the need to modernize climate-related disaster prevention systems and reduce the economy's vulnerability to the mounting risks posed by climate change.

As a result of annual average temperatures increasing by 0.26 C every 10 years between 1951 and 2020, vegetation belts have been gradually pushed northward according to the document. The document added that adjustments to crop structure, the promotion of water-saving irrigation, a reduction in the use of pesticides and a move toward higher-quality farmland needs to be undertaken in a bid to ensure food security.

Li Guicai, a researcher at the National Satellite Meteorological Center, said the deployment of more cutting-edge weather satellites would greatly contribute to national efforts.

"Weather satellites can monitor the development of high temperatures and droughts and help us better understand how droughts spread and evolve," he said.

Zhang also highlighted the need to scale up the capacity to monitor and issue early warnings for large-scale droughts to ensure food security, adding that it is imperative the government and research institutions better coordinate to shore up China's emergency response capacity to major droughts.

Cui Ningbo, a professor at the College of Economics and Management at the Northeast Agricultural University, wrote in a coauthored article that areas vulnerable to extreme weather should take measures to secure water supplies and guard against pests and disease to be able to withstand drought and maintain stable food production.

"There is a need to improve farming through technology and to improve the farmland health so that farmers are able to weather droughts and floods," he wrote. "As changing weather patterns and frequent extreme weather events occur due to global warming, China should continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which will also help it reach peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060."