ADVANCES IN CLIMATE WARMING IMPACT RESEARCH IN CHINA IN RECENT TEN YEARS

Increasing of greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere will strengthen the natural greenhouse effect, which could lead to global climate warming more than other changes. China is large agricultural country with a large of population and relatively deficient farming lands and water resources; thus climate warming is very important to the national economy development. Therefore, the Chinese government and scientists paid great attention to the impact-assessment of climate warming on the national economy in China, especially during the past 10 tears. A brief description is made on major issues of climate warming impact research on the national vegetation, agriculture, forest, water resources, energy use, regional sea level rise in China, etc. As a result, all climate change scenarios derived by GCMs suggest a substantial change in the characteristic natural vegetation types. It is also shown that comparing with the distribution simulated under the normal time period of 1951 to 1980 as the present climate, by 2050 large changes in cropping systems would occur almost everywhere in China. Climate warming would lead to increasing cropping diversification and multiplication. Unfortunately, the possible net balance between precipitation and evapo-transpiration would be negative and the length of growing period would be shorten; therefore, all of these would lead to the reducing grain production in China significantly due to the enhanced moisture stress in soil. The most evident influence of climate warming on water resources would happen in the Huang-Huai-Hai River plain and the water supply-demand deficit would be substantially enhanced in this area. And also, a warmer climate for China will alter the energy demand for domestic heating and cooling, that is, reduce energy use for heating in northern China and increase energy consumption for cooling in southern China. Meanwhile, the projected sea level rise would result in partial submergence of three China's major coastal vulnerable regions, i. e. the Zhujiang River Delta, Changjiang River Delta and Huanghe River Delta.