Climate changes threaten China's boom

According to a Jan. 18 article in the morning edition of the Sydney, Australia, Herald, sent to me by my friend Cecil Hathaway, China's booming economy has been "seriously threatened by climate changes, wide weather 'extremes.'

Just recently, China was forced to buy corn from the U.S. due to parching drought conditions in parts of the huge country, supposedly caused by global warming.

China is the world's largest consumer of cereals and soybeans. The Chinese are increasingly turning to foreign supplies of food due to frequent crop-destroying floods and droughts of 'almost Biblical proportions.'

China has the world's second biggest economy to the U.S. It has now taken over as the largest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution on the planet. It's also true that China, with 1.34 billion people, currently emits a quarter of the world's annual output of carbon dioxide gases. China's emissions grew a whopping 10 percent in 2010.

Climate changes will continue to lead to severe imbalances in China's water resources. Droughts will become increasingly frequent, especially in western and central China. Summer floods will wipe out crops at times across southern China.

Record cold temperatures have hurt winter grain crops in recent years in northern China due to the lack of protective snowcover.

Climate changes, wide weather 'extremes,' along with shifting land-use policies, pose a long-term threat to China's prosperity, health and food output prospects.

Water, either too much or too little, often clips budding prosperity, especially during the current period of WIDE WEATHER 'EXTREMES,' the worst such global cycle in more than 1,000 years.

SPECIAL NOTE TO

ROB STRATTON

Thank you for your interesting email on Jan. 23. I'm sharing your comments with our readers.

Yes, I agree that "if the earth were still warming as many claim, we wouldn't have so many cool, wet 'La Ninas' in the waters of the Pacific Ocean."

Rob also points out, "the U.S. Navy has current maps available to the public that show that the Arctic ice is becoming so thick that they can't surface in some areas." We saw that recently west of ice-bound Nome, Alaska, where the winter of 2011-12 has been one of the harshest on record.

Rob also mentioned that "the mountains south of Butte, Mont., have seen year-round snows, where they used to melt during the summer months until five years ago in 2007." Thanks again, Rob.

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

I wrote this North Idaho weather update on Thursday, Feb. 2, 'Groundhog Day.' Temperatures locally were rather mild for mid-winter, hovering around 30 degrees.

Pennsylvania's 'Punxutawney Phil' emerged from his Gobbler's Knob den, saw his shadow, and in the process, predicted six more weeks of winter through at least mid-March.

Temperatures back east have been unseasonably warm during the current winter of 2011-12, so folks in Pennsylvania aren't worried about six more weeks of rather 'tame' weather conditions, especially when compared to the extremely harsh winter of 2010-11.

What began as a small gathering in 1887 has now evolved into a scene of tens of thousands of visitors to Gobbler's Knob from around the world.

Phil has now seen his shadow 100 times out of 116 times since 1887. His prognostications have always been correct, because he never names a specific site location. I guarantee that Alaska and parts of eastern Europe will have six more weeks of winter. In the Ukraine, for example, it's been the coldest winter since at least 1966. Nearly 50 people have frozen to death with hundreds more treated in hospitals for hypothermia and frostbite. At least a third of the Ukrainian winter wheat crop has been lost to winterkill.

Our local weather this winter has been mostly dry and quite mild. The period from Nov. 22 through Jan. 16 was the most snowless in Coeur d'Alene on record since at least 1895 with a mere 6.3 inches for the entire seven-week span on Player Drive.

But, then came our predicted 'knock your socks off' four-day snowstorm between Jan. 17 and Jan. 20 that dumped a normal month's snowfall on North Idaho in just 95 hours.

Our seasonal snowfall total climbed from just 17.2 inches on Jan. 16 to a near-normal 41.1 inches on Player Drive where I measure snowfall every four hours, six times a day, even during the overnight hours.

We actually gauged more snowfall in the third week of January on Player Drive than folks like Mark Dymkoski did in the Rathdrum, Athol and Twin Lakes areas, normal 'snowbelt regions' of the Panhandle. The big snowstorm tended to hug areas just to the north of I-90. Areas near Lake Coeur d'Alene received less snow south of I-90.

Our total January snowfall on Player Drive was a slightly above normal 25.9 inches compared with our 117-year monthly normal of 21.4 inches in Coeur d'Alene.

Our total liquid precipitation during January was 4.07 inches. Our normal January precipitation since 1895 has been 3.71 inches.

Temperatures during January 2012 averaged exactly four degrees above normal at 31 degrees compared to the normal 27 degrees. We had a record maximum reading on January 4 of 55 degrees. Our monthly low was 13 degrees on January 18 during the midpoint of our big dump of snow in the Inland Empire.

As I said last week, I believe the snowiest part of the winter of 2011-12 has ended. I see only 15 inches more of the white stuff falling in February, March and April, less than normal. This would push our seasonal total by June 30 to around 63 inches, very close to my seasonal forecast of 63.4 inches updated in late December for my station on Player Drive and approximately 52 inches for the season along the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene.

But, once again, only time will tell.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com