With the sun burning many cities early this year, experts said on Tuesday that such a climate-changing trend will become more and more obvious in the long run. However, it will not become a huge problem in assuring power supplies for people's livelihoods.

Over the next three days, temperatures in northern China are expected to rapidly exceed 35 C, according to data released by the China Meteorological Administration. The range of high temperatures will peak around Thursday, with continuous high readings expected in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and other areas. 

In contrast, areas along the Yangtze River and further south will experience frequent rainfall in the coming days, with possible heavy rainstorms. 

As of Monday, more than half of provincial capital cities in China had already experienced their first high temperatures of the year, most of which arrived earlier than in previous years. 

The first high-temperature day in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, Southwest China's Chongqing, and Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province arrived more than a month earlier than usual. Analysis of meteorological big data by Weather China found that the arrival of high temperatures in most of China is getting earlier, and the number of days is also increasing.

In China, heat waves and high temperatures usually start in June, Zhang Mingying, a Beijing-based meteorologist, told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

According to Zhang, there are two kinds of heat - dry or muggy. The muggy heat that appears in July and August will have a great impact on people's lives and health, no matter whether people stay indoors or outdoors.

Comparing the average first high-temperature day for each decade from 1971 to 2020, Chongqing, Nanjing, Fuzhou and Hangzhou have seen a significant advance, with Chongqing being over a month ahead.

According to the National Climate Center, spring 2023 saw overall higher-than-average national temperatures, ranking the seventh highest in the same period of history, but with significant fluctuations. 

Precipitation was generally less than average, the least since 2012 in the same period, with large spatial differences. Precipitation was more than average in the eastern parts of North and Northwest China, while it was less in the Southwest, South, and Northeast. A total of 184 national meteorological stations reached the extreme event standard for maximum daily temperatures.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that with rising temperatures, there is a 98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will be the hottest on record. The next five years are also set to be the hottest ever. As global warming progresses, the world may see more and stronger extreme high-temperature events, and extreme weather like heatwaves could become the norm.

With the onset of high temperatures, Guangdong started issuing high-temperature subsidies to workers in related jobs, to be distributed continuously for five months.

Yuanyang county in Xinxiang, Central China's Henan Province, issued a high-temperature warning on Tuesday, stating that those working under high-temperature conditions should reduce their continuous working hours.
 
In East China's Jiangsu Province, the daily power load has already exceeded 100 million kilowatts, which also happened earlier than in previous years. In response to the surge in residential electricity consumption, the State Grid Jiangsu Electric Co launched the "electricity calendar" function, so that users can intuitively understand the electricity consumption situation, and save electricity during the peak period.

Such a climate-changing trend will become more and more obvious in the long run unless the usage structure of energy changes to green energy, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times.

Although it is uncertain if the maximum temperatures this summer will be higher than last year or the high-temperature days will last longer than those of 2023, it won't be a huge problem to ensure power supplies for people's livelihoods, Lin noted.

In 2023, the first high-temperature days in India, Vietnam, Singapore, and other countries arrived earlier than in previous years, and temperatures in some places even broke historical records for the same period.

The Global Climate Status Report 2022 issued by the WMO points out that globally, despite the cooling effect of La Ni?a events in the past three years, the period from 2015 to 2022 was still the warmest eight years on record. Glacial melt and sea-level rises reached record levels in 2022.