Extreme weather

CHINA is bracing for a tough flood season this year, with the National Climate Center predicting further extreme weather events, including heavy rainfall.

Sun Jun, chief forecaster of the center, said that precipitation in some southern areas of China has set records for daily rainfall in May.

Black land

CHINESE researchers have conducted a 10-day aerial integrated observation experiment to accurately monitor the quality and condition of black land in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, according to yesterday’s China Science Daily.

During the observation experiment, black land topography, soil nutrients, soil temperature and humidity, crop properties, and cultivated land quality were diagnosed accurately, facilitated by 15 homemade satellites achieving more than 50 images, according to the report.

Lakes’ color changes

CHINESE scientists and their international counterparts have recently discovered that China’s lakes have become bluer and greener in recent decades because of reasons that include higher temperatures and rainfall.

According to the study published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the colors for 68% of the lakes from 1984 to 2021 shifted toward shorter visual wavelengths. The blue lakes in western China, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, became bluer, while the green-yellow lakes in eastern China shifted to greener colors.