China news agency, Beijing, April 12 (Reporter Pang Wuji) The Ministry of Natural Resources held the first press conference of this year on April 12, during which the 2022 China Sea Level Bulletin was released. According to the bulletin, in 2022, China's coastal sea level will be 94mm higher than that of the normal year (1993-2011), the highest level since 1980.

The communique shows that under the background of global warming, the sea level changes in China's coastal areas are generally accelerating. Wang Hua, Director of the Marine Early Warning and Monitoring Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources, said that from 1980 to 2022, China's coastal sea level rose at a rate of 3.5 mm per year. In the past 30 years (from 1993 to 2022), China's coastal sea level has risen at a rate of 4.0 mm per year, higher than the global average in the same period.

Among them, in 2022, the coastal sea level of China will be 94mm higher than that of the normal year (1993-2011), the highest since 1980. In the past 11 years (from 2012 to 2022), China's coastal sea level has been at the highest level since the observation records.

The global sea level rise is mainly caused by the sea water warming and expansion caused by climate warming, the melting of land glaciers and polar ice sheets and other factors. The communique pointed out that in the context of global warming, the temperature and sea surface temperature in China's coastal areas have increased significantly, and the sea level has accelerated.

In the past 40 years, China's coastal sea level has shown an accelerating upward trend. Its long-term cumulative effect has resulted in the compression of coastal ecosystems and the loss of tidal flats, affected coastal groundwater resources, and increased the degree of disaster caused by storm surges, coastal urban floods and saltwater intrusion. At the same time, land subsidence in coastal areas leads to the rise of relative sea level, which increases the impact of disasters.

Wang Hua said that in 2022, the high sea level along China's coast will intensify the impact of storm surges, which will have a serious impact on the coasts of Guangdong, Zhejiang and Shandong; Due to the combined effect of high sea level, astronomical spring tide and heavy rainfall, composite coastal floods have occurred in Zhejiang, Hainan and other coastal areas, causing greater economic losses. Compared with 2021, the saltwater intrusion in the Yangtze River Estuary, Qiantang River Estuary and Pearl River Estuary is generally aggravated, the coastal erosion in some monitored coastal sections of Jiangsu, Guangdong and Hainan is aggravated, and the seawater intrusion scope in some monitored coastal areas of Liaoning, Shandong and Jiangsu is enlarged.