Monday, October 17, 2011

China to improve ocean disaster safeguards

People's Daily via Xinhua: In the next five years, China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) will continuously enhance its capability to observe and assess marine climate change. It will also set up and perfect mechanisms for monitoring marine disasters and giving early warning information, which will effectively reduce losses caused by marine disasters to the coastal economy, society and people's life and property, said Chen Lianzeng, deputy director general of State Oceanic Administration on Oct. 16, 2011.

He also added that the ocean is now experience the great influence of increasingly serious climate change. A warming climate can generate various negative phenomena such as worldwide ocean acidification, sea level rise, marine ecosystem retrogradation and frequent marine disasters.

...According to Chen's introduction, a primary planning system answering to global climate change has been established, which is one of the sound effects of SOA's efforts in recent years. More than 50 tidal stations with GPS (Global Position System) observational facilities have been fixed and offshore buoies renovation has been finished which evidently have improved the marine climate observation ability. What's more, it has also improved the monitoring of air-sea carbon dioxide exchange flux which is an advantageous attempt in mapping the time and space distribution pattern of China's carbon sources. In addition, it has started the appraisement of El Nino and other oceanic changes’ influence on China's flood season feature, which provides an instructive proposal for governments at all levels to make a good climate response....

From 1958, a Chinese propaganda poster featuring happy farmers in a people's commune. Wikimedia Commons

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