Sea levels along China’s coast have risen an average of 2.9 millimeters each year from 1980 and 2012, while temperatures have increased from 0.9 to 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1909. The report concludes that temperatures will continue to rise in China anywhere from 1.5 to as much as 5 degrees Celsius by 2100.

These numbers are consistent with the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) which, in 2013, raised concerns about the accelerated rate of Chinese sea levels that are threatening millions of coastal residents. SOA places much of the blame on China’s dangerously high pollution levels. According to Liu Kexiu of the National Marine Data and Information Service, “The rising temperatures from increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the land subsidence nationwide led to the high seas.”

Created over three years, and including the work of 500 scientists from 20 Chinese authoritative bodies, the report was first presented at the COP21 Paris Climate Change Conference.

In addition to temperature statistics, the report claims that glaciers in western China have retreated by 10 percent since the 1970s. Just last May, a 20 kilometer-long glacier in Xinjiang collapsed, crushing dozens of homes and damaging 1,000 hectares of grassland, an incident the Chinese Academy of Sciences attributed to climate change.

Late last year, the New York Times reported that China has been severely under-reporting its coal use by several million tons every year, drawing into question the legitimacy of attempts made by the country to curb air pollution, an issue Beijing recently pledged 2.5 billion yuan to address.

Although rising sea levels are expected to wreak havoc in coastal cities around the world, the city predicted to incur the highest annual costs due to flooding by 2050 is China’s own Guangzhou at $13.2 billion, reports the Washington Post. As a percentage of GDP, Guangzhou is predicted to suffer more damage as a result of climate change than any other city in the world, with Shenzhen and Tianjin not far behind.

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The cold front, which hit many parts of China on Thursday, brought heavy snow to regions along the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers, as well as Tibet with temperatures dipping by as much as 14 degrees Celsius.

A blue alert was issued by the National Meteorological Center (NMC) on Wednesday morning for snow storms.

This weekend, Shanghai is expected to experience its coldest weather in 35 years, with temperatures plunging to -10 degrees Celsius in the outskirts of the city. Shanghai has already been hit with sleet and drizzle as temperatures hover around 1 to 2 degrees Celsius.

Chinese farmers are bracing themselves for the worst: “The temperature will stay in the negative for several days. Only ten percent of the vegetables will survive,” said Zhu Dazhi, a farmer in central China’s Hunan province.

The weather may cause travel disruptions for the upcoming Spring Festival, taking place this year on February 8.

Last winter, 76.8 billion yuan ($12 billion) was set aside to help underpoverished urban and rural residents combat the cold weather. In 2013, winter cold killed some 180,000 cattle and froze power lines in northern China, threatening millions with a loss of electrical power.

The worst winter storm in recent Chinese history was back in 2008, when severe ice and snow storms caused extensive damage in central and southern China.

The post Deep Freeze Hits China, Expected To Last Until Next Week appeared first on The Nanfang.

As seen on the streets of Jinan, Shandong on December 7, the “Multi-Function Dust Suppressor” is a large water cannon mounted on a truck that sprays water in hopes of reducing smog.

First seen in Zhangjiakou, Hebei in July 2014, the water cannon can hold up to ten tons of water and can spray a fine mist for 75 minutes. The question however is, does it actually work?

Zhejiang professor Yu Shaocai, certainly believes so. Yu, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency worker, is an expert on “wet disposition”, a process where water particles cling to pollutant aerosol particles in the air. When the two bind, the pollutant particles fall to the ground, thereby “cleaning” the air in the process. Yu believes the giant cannons should become a fixture in Chinese urban centers, and that all tall buildings should be outfitted with hoses to spray the surrounding area with water.

If Yu’s recommendations were implemented, the cannons would take a large toll on the water resources in the perennially-arid north. Of course there is also the issue of delivery, a problem Yu proposes to solve by using military helicopters:

This isn’t the first time giant water cannons have been used to influence smog readings. Last January, the Hanzhou Environmental Protection Bureau in Shaanxi was caught spraying water onto an air quality monitor in an attempt to influence the monitor’s readings.

With a cold front forecast to move in today, air quality in Beijing should gradually start to improve. However, the city needs all the help it can get, even if that help comes in the form of giant water cannons.

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When the plant first opened in 2009, it produced an impressive 5.2 gigawatts of energy. By the end of last year, that number had jumped to 28 gigawatts, and has further increased by another five percent in the first three months of this year.

The photos were taken by NASA’s Advanced Land Imager, located on the Earth Observing-1 satellite. Its camera is capable of capturing images at a resolution of 30 square meters per pixel, approximately the same as Google Maps at its widest angle.

The urgency to develop alternate energy in China was prompted by environmental and national security concerns. After a decade of development and an estimated $10 billion in investment, Chinese solar panel manufacturer, Suntech, anticipates that it will produce solar-made electricity cheaper than electricity made from coal by 2017.

If achieved, the milestone would help China fulfill its pledge to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels by five percent by 2030. With coal use already banished from the legal limits of Beijing, and pollution-fighting initiatives such as this one, those APEC-blue skies may one day become an everyday reality.

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In a video called “Breathe Again”, Chinese air filtration company, Xiaozhu, claims that nearly 500,000 people die from air pollution-related diseases every year, the majority of which are children. The video is a montage of crying children, with the concluding words: “Clean the air. Let the future breathe again.”

For a company that was founded last year, Xiaozhu has been quite busy. In another well-publicized video, the company outlines its eco-friendly business plan and promotes products that include an all-bamboo made air filtration unit.

However, as effective as the campaign may be in conveying the horrors of air pollution, no one seems to be very interested. The video’s Youku page hasn’t received many hits, and the company’s own website and Weibo account make no mention of the video.

The somewhat indifferent reaction may have something to do with how the video was made. As one rather astute commentator pointed out: “The people that made this ‘commercial’ did so without clearing things up first. This is steam (coming out of those chimneys), not pollution…”

Here’s the video:

And here it is on Youku:

The post Crying Babies Beamed onto China’s Thick Pollution Isn’t Changing Any Minds appeared first on The Nanfang.

In 2014, nearly two-thirds of China’s underground water, and a third of its surface water, was rated as “unsuitable for direct human contact”, announced the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Only three percent of 968 surface water sites monitored by the Ministry met the highest standard, and 63 percent were ranked at grade III or higher (on a six-point scale). The remaining sites, or 37 percent, were found to be unfit for human use. They were also found to be completely unusable and could not be repurposed for industrial or agricultural use.

The problems seem to be getting worse. In 2014, the Ministry classified 62 percent of the 4,896 monitored underground sites as either “relatively poor” or “very poor.” The corresponding figure for 2013 was almost 60 percent, based on samples from 4,778 sites.

Other kinds of pollution have also been wreaking havoc China. In April, one-fifth of the soil in China was reportedly contaminated. Regulations enacted in Guangzhou to curtail excessive light pollution from billboard signs and large outdoor screens were largely ignored by local businesses.

Related:

• Mayors Swim Across Pearl River To Prove It’s Clean
• Chemical plant suspected of contaminating local water supply in Zhongshan
• Thousands of dead fish found in Shenzhen lake
• Picture This: Guangdong River Turns Bright Red

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New maps show what would happen to some of the country’s largest cities in a worse-case scenario. The TL;DR version is this: 43 percent of China’s population would find itself underwater.

The maps below were created by Jeffrey Linn and first published on ChinaFile. The comparisons between what the cities look like today and what could happen to them are stark. Linn created them as a glimpse into what would happen if the polar ice caps completely melted, a cataclysm that would require centuries to take place. But sea levels are rising fast, and these images are alarming. Take a look.

Here’s Hong Kong’s current photo, with the forecast underneath:

This is the before and after of the Pearl River Delta, a place that already suffers from extreme flooding:

And here’s Shanghai:

The post Alarming New Maps Show How Climate Change Will Drown China’s Coastal Cities appeared first on The Nanfang.

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In south China, the average temperature has been going up 0.16 degrees celsius every decade and during winter it has been going up 0.27 degrees celsius every ten years. This could threaten both economic and ecological development according to the report “The South China Climate Change Assessment.”

Du Yaodong, an expert from the bureau, reported that in south China, the number of hazy days had increased and the number of foggy and rainy days had decreased significantly.

Du then claimed that the main reason for the increase in temperature was anthropogenic climate change, and it was exacerbated in the PRD because of rapid urbanisation.

Du warned that extreme weather events would become more common in south China, and agriculture and water and energy resources would be hit hard. He also claimed that rising sea levels would affect economic development on the south coast and that heat waves and fog would increase the spread of diseases such as dengue fever and malaria.

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