Focus on Arts and Ecology

 The big environmental stories in the Chinese media this week (21-27 August)

China’s “overall ecological and climate situation is good, [but] some ecological areas are seeing increased instability,” stated the Chinese Meteorological Administration’s annual Climate Change Blue Book, released on 24 August. However, the statistics gathered in the report paint a very worrying picture of trends in China’s climate and ecology:
 

• Between 1951 and 2019, China’s annual average temperature has increased 0.24C per decade, higher than the global average. The researchers emphasised that China is highly sensitive to the impacts of global climate change.
• On precipitation, which has been national news for months as a result of unprecedented floods across much of southern China, the Blue Book noted that the number of days that see rainfall has decreased, but that the frequency of extreme precipitation events has increased by 3.8% per decade since 1961.
• Regional variations in rainfall are also notable. The high plateau of Tibet and Qinghai have seen rainfall increase, while the south-west, most notably Yunnan, has seen total rainfall decrease. 
• The Tibetan plateau is also experiencing higher temperatures and the report noted that some parts of the Xinjiang Tianshan No. 1 Glacier are seeing their fastest ever melt. China’s permafrost is also melting more quickly than in previous years. 
• Sea level rise around China’s coast has accelerated, above the global average, with 2019 seeing the third highest sea level since 1980.
• More positively, vegetation coverage, measured by infrared satellite imagery, shows a steady increase since 2015, while net desertification, a major problem in western China, is shown to be zero.