今年冬天会是“超级冷冬”吗？最新回应

Recent online discussions claiming that China will face a "super cold winter" this year have drawn wide public attention. In response, Zhang Daquan, an official with the National Climate Center, offered clarification in a recent interview.

Zhang explained that under China's national standards, a winter is classified as cold or warm only when more than half of the country's weather stations record average temperatures that meet the defined criteria. He noted that cold and warm winters are not forecasts, but post-season assessments based on actual temperature data.

Regarding this year's outlook, Zhang said climate models suggest that temperatures across China are likely to be near or slightly above the seasonal average, with noticeable fluctuations between cold and warm periods throughout the winter.

Zhang said on Wednesday that in recent monitoring of ocean atmosphere, much of the equatorial central and eastern Pacific has registered sea surface temperatures below normal, indicating a neutral-to-cool state.

"On that basis," Zhang said, "the climate prediction office forecasts a transition to La Nina conditions in the upcoming season."

China is likely to experience the onset of a La Nina climate pattern in the late autumn, which could bring freezing rain and snow in the north, southwest, and central regions this winter, while southern areas may face periods of drought, according to meteorologists.

Historically, winters during La Nina years in China, December through February have seen a higher probability of below-average temperatures. "Snow disasters in the north and freezing or icy weather in the south were relatively more common in the earlier decades," Zhang said.

However, experts stressed that a La Nina event does not guarantee an "extreme cold winter" and may even result in a warm winter under global warming, Zhang said, using the winter of 2020-2021 as an example.