Abnormal Climate May Continue in China: ExpertChinese meteorologists predict that the abnormal climate may linger in China in the coming years as a result of the alternating effect of El Nino and La Nina.The latest issue of China's most authoritative news weekly Outlook quoted Lu Juntian, an expert from the State Climatic Center, as saying that "China is no earthly paradise in the global climatic change." In the summer of 1997, north China suffered from scarce rainfall and north, northeast and northwest China were plagued by high temperatures. In 1998, devastating floods occurred in the Yangtze, Nenjiang and Songhua rivers. Last year, serious droughts hit north China, and summer storms brought floods to the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. The El Nino phenomenon, which appears roughly every four years, refers to the abnormal temperature rises in tropical waters which normally lead to global anomalies in weather and climate. La Nina is the name given to another weather phenomenon in which unusually cool water from the Pacific Ocean affects weather conditions nearly the world over. Lu said the frequent and alternate occurrences of El Nino and La Nina may continue to affect China in the future. |
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