SHANGHAI: China’s Xinjiang on Saturday (Jul 23) warned associated with more flash floods and mudslides and risks to agriculture as heatwaves swept over the region , speeding up the pace of glacial melt plus posing hazards because of its vast cotton production.
Tiongkok has been baked by above-normal summer heat since June, which includes meteorologists blaming weather change. The excessively hot weather has powered up demand intended for electricity to awesome homes, offices plus factories. In farming regions, drought is a concern.
Xinjiang’s latest heatwaves are actually particularly long lasting plus widespread, Chen Chunyan, chief expert in the Xinjiang Meteorological Observatory, told state media.
She observed the extreme weather conditions in the south plus east of the region, more than twice the dimensions of France, has already lasted for about 10 days.
Ruoqiang in the southeast of Xinjiang turned on a red alert – the highest in a three-tier heat caution system – upon Friday evening, predicting temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) or more for the next 24 hours.
In 2015, a local news website reported 50. 3 degrees Celsius at a weather station near Ayding, a dried out lake in Xinjiang’s Turpan Depression.
“Continued high temperature offers accelerated glacial melting in mountainous areas, and caused organic disasters such as expensive floods, mudslides, and landslides in many places, ” Chen stated.
The Cina Meteorological Administration said a day earlier that the glacial melting within Xinjiang poses a high risk of dam failure on a tributary of the Aksu Lake near China’s border with Kyrgyzstan.
Mostly known for the deserts, Xinjiang can also be home to long mountain ranges along its borders, including the Tian Shan hills, the Pamirs, the particular Kunlun mountains and the Karakoram, which have turn out to be increasingly popular for Chinese tourists amid COVID-19 restrictions on international travel.
Such heatwaves could also impact crops, especially 100 % cotton, Chen cautioned.
Xinjiang accounts for creation of about 20 % of the world’s 100 % cotton, a water-thirsty harvest. By some estimates, 20, 000 lt of water is needed to produce 1kg associated with cotton, enough for just one T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
Xinjiang is not suffering by itself. Another round of extreme temperatures are expected to affect a few 20 provinces.
Coastal provinces and the financial capital associated with Shanghai are expected to be the most affected, with temperatures as high as 39 degrees Celsius expected on Saturday, said the National Meteorological Centre.