Translated from www.xinhuanet.com
According to the report on www.xinhuanet.com on 22nd, August, under global warming, glaciers in China has decreased by 7% in size in the past forty years, with its runoff reaching that of the Yellow River.
Prof. Yao Tandong, director of ITP, told the reporter that Chinese glaciers are mainly located in western China. There are altogether 46,298 glaciers in high-altitude Asian Regions, with Tibetan Plateau as its core. They take up an area of about 59,406 Km2, storing a total of 5590 Km3 of glaciers. Under the influence of global warming, most glaciers begin to shrink since the middle of last century. As to those moving forward or stably maneuvering glaciers, they also alter their trend into shrinking, due to increasing temperature.
Studies show that in the past forty years, Chinese glaciers have decreased by 7% in size, with its storage losing amount of 452.770Km3 to 586.94Km3 water annually. Nowadays, the runoff of the melting water totals about 564*108Km3, which contributes to 2% of the national total and 10% in the western regions respectively, making it even with that of the Yellow River.
In spite of the fact that the melting water leads to 5.5% of increase in the runoff in northwest regions in China, esp. in Xinjiang Ugur Autonomous Regions (e.g. the melting Tarimu glacier has contributed to 55% of the increase in the runoff in the last forty years, leading to 32% increase of runoff within Xinjiang since 1980s), Prof. Yao Tandong still sees no sign of the relief of the arid situation there. He explains that high temperature in the west causes large amount of evaporation and that will counteract the increase in the runoff.
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