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Climate change a growing threat in Tibet: media report
Beijing (AFP) Nov 21, 2007 Climate change is causing more weather-related disasters than ever in the Himalayan region of Tibet, where the temperature is rising faster than the rest of China, state press reported Wednesday. "Natural disasters, like droughts, landslides, snowstorms and fires are more frequent and calamitous now," Xinhua news agency quoted the director of the Tibet Regional Meteorological Bureau, Song Shanyun, as saying. "The tolls are more severe and losses are bigger." The temperature in Tibet has been rising by 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.54 degrees Fahrenheit) every decade, about 10 times faster than the national average, with visible consequences, a bureau study found. "Problems like receding snow lines, shrinking glaciers, drying grasslands and desert expansion are increasingly threatening the natural eco-system in the region," Song said. The report is the latest in China to warn of the dramatic impact of global warming on the region known as the "roof of the world" and regarded as a barometer of world climate conditions. The region's glaciers have been melting at an average rate of 131.4 square kilometres (50 square miles) per year over the past 30 years, according to previously released Chinese government research. Chinese researchers have said that even if global warming did not worsen, the region's glaciers would be reduced by nearly a third by 2050 and up to half by 2090, at the current rate. Song directly attributed two disasters in 2000 to climate change. In one of them, a thawed snow cap caused a "rare and extremely large-scale" landslide in Nyingchi prefecture in southeast Tibet. More than 300 million cubic metres (10.6 billion cubic feet) of debris, piling up to 100 metres (330 feet) high, blocked a river and impacted 4,000 people in the area, the report said. The other disaster was in Shigatse in southern Tibet, when a "once-in-a-century" flood affected more than 60,000 people and inundated thousands of hectares of cropland. Related Links Beyond the Ice Age
New Zealand glaciers retreat due to global warming: scientists
Wellington (AFP) Nov 19, 2007New Zealand's largest glaciers are retreating fast in the face of global warming and could disappear altogether, scientists said Monday. |
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