This winter's temperatures have been unusually high -- a fact not warming to Ms. Yao's heart. The warm weather is dampening her enthusiasm as a salesperson at Bosideng Corporation, the leading produce of down garments in China.

 

Bosideng has seen a sharp decrease of sales this winter.

 

"We almost contact the Central Meteorological Station (CMS) every day to make sure when the temperature will drop," Ms Yao said, declining to reveal exact figures of Bosideng's loss in this winter.

 

Gao Ge, CMS official, said the average temperature from Dec. 1 to 15 in 2004 was 2.84 Celsius degrees. This is 2.61 Celsius degrees higher than in an average year and is the second highest since 1961.

 

In February this year, China saw the end of its 18th consecutive warm winter with an average temperature of minus 3.5 degrees centigrade since Dec. 1, 2003, according to the CMS.

 

Besides Ms Yao, Zhang Xinsheng, manager of Shengfeng Company in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu province, is also experiencing chilly sales this winter. His company sells various brands of heaters.

 

But declining sales of winter goods, aren't the only problems caused by warm temperatures.

 

"Warm winters activate many viruses and bacteria leading to diseases," Yu Zhihao, professor with Nanjing University said. If bacteria doesn't die from the cold in a warm winter, it will run rampant next spring.

 

Cheng Zhongming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Science, said warm winters disturbed plants' biological circles and upset natural balance.

 

Yu also listed several benefits of warm winters. "High temperature helps us to save energy and ease pressure of the electric power supply," he said. "The vegetable supply can be guaranteed too."

 

But according to a report on greenhouse gas emissions, said that climate change could cut China's food production 10 percent by 2050. Given current conditions, the damage would hit China between 2030 and 2050, Yu Zhihao said.

 

The report is based on an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions carried out between 1990 and 1994 and was presented at the 10th annual UN climate change conference.

 

"Climate warming would speed up plant growth and shorten the crop growing period," and cause " an overall decreasing trend for wheat, rice and maize yield," according to the report.

 

China's climate change trend corresponds to the general trend of the global climate change, the report said. The 1990's was one of the warmest decade in the last 100 years. Since the 1950s, the sea level has risen along China's coast because of climate change, a trend has become significantly more obvious in the past few years, the report said.

 

"With the current speed of greenhouse gas emission, the 34 most prosperous Chinese coastal cities will be inundated in 2050 due to global warming," Yu Zhihao said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2004)