China to speed up building national climate observatories

BEIJING - China will speed up establishing national climate observatories, an official from China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said on Tuesday.

Climate change has become a worldwide concern, and to address the problem it is necessary to conduct comprehensive observations of the climate system, Zhang Zuqiang, director of the emergency relief and public service department of CMA, said at a press conference.

The national climate observatories will function as integrated meteorological stations to carry out long-term, consecutive and all-around monitoring of the multilayered climate systems and the interactions among different layers.

The observatories will also serve as a platform for scientific research and talent cultivation and they will be open to administrations at home and abroad, Zhang added.

During the implementation of the 13th five-year plan in China, which extends from 2016 to 2020, CMA will establish national climate observatories in 16 critical areas in the climate systems which are sensitive to interactions among distinctive layers and exchanges of mass and energy, Zhang said.

In 2007, five meteorological observation stations in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and provinces of Anhui, Guangdong, Yunnan, and Gansu had been chosen as the pilot areas for establishing the climate observatories.