China reports warmest autumn since records began

BEIJING – China reported its warmest autumn in 2024 since records began decades ago, its National Climate Centre announced on Dec 4.

China is the leading emitter of the greenhouse gases scientists say are driving global climate change and making extreme weather events more frequent.

Beijing has pledged to bring planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.

“During this year’s autumn season (Sept 1 to Nov 30), the national average temperature was 11.8 deg C, 1.5 deg C higher than the average year, the highest ever since 1961,” the centre announced on its social media account.

China in 2024 has already

logged its hottest July since records began

– which was also the hottest month in the history of observation.

August, too, was the warmest ever recorded, capping a summer of extreme weather conditions, from searing heat waves to torrential rainfall.

Global warming can make such weather more frequent, not just through high temperatures but also the knock-on effect of extra heat in the atmosphere and seas.

Warmer air can hold more water vapour and warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, resulting in more intense downpours and storms.

In China this autumn, most regions experienced temperatures 1 deg C to 2 deg C above average, while parts of central, east, south-west and north-west China experienced average temperatures that were 2 deg C to 4 deg C higher during the period compared with previous years, the National Climate Centre said on Dec 4.

“This year is indeed much warmer than last year, and the winter is also much warmer,” one user from the eastern province of Shandong wrote on social media platform Weibo.

“This time last year, I remember it was almost snowing. The temperature had dropped to minus 4 deg C or 5 deg C. It’s only 8 deg C now,” the person added.

A total of 16 provinces and regions, including Liaoning, Tianjin and Chongqing, recorded their highest average autumn temperatures since 1961.

Daily maximum temperatures at 375 national weather stations exceeded or equalled local historical autumn extremes.

The average number of high-temperature days nationwide in September also hit a record high for the same period in history, while Sichuan, Chongqing and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River suffered from heat and drought in early autumn, the climate centre said.

Residents of the southern city of Guangzhou experienced a record-breaking long summer in 2024, with state media reporting that there were 240 days when the average temperature was above 22 deg C, breaking the record of 234 days set in 1994.

Worldwide, 2024 is “virtually certain” to be the hottest in recorded history with warming above 1.5 deg C, European Union climate monitor Copernicus said in November. Copernicus said 2024 would likely be more than 1.55 deg C above the 1850 to 1900 average – the period before the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels.

This does not amount to a breach of the Paris deal, which strives to limit global warming to below 2 deg C and preferably 1.5 deg C, because that is measured over decades and not individual years. AFP