2006: China's warmest year in half century

China recorded an average temperature of 9.9 degrees Celsius in 2006, which made it the country's warmest year since 1951, according to the China Meteorological Bureau.

Over the past 50 years, the most evident temperature rises occurred in the northern and northeastern parts of China and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said experts with the State Climate Center under the bureau.

It is noteworthy that in 2006, 13 out of 39 state climate observation stations on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is highly sensitive to climate changes, recorded an all-time high temperature, the experts said.

Since 1950, there has been a trend of warming in most parts of China in terms of both average annual temperature and winter temperature, according to data released by the meteorological bureau.

From the 1986-1987 winter to now, China experienced 19 warm winters.

Meteorologists say if the average temperature between December to the coming February is 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than that of the same period in the past three decades, the winter could be defined as a warm one.

Scientists believe that carbon dioxide emission is the major culprit for global warming, which is bringing about more pests and droughts in some places, coupled with more frequent climatic disasters such as typhoons and thunder storms.