While unsure about British scientists' prediction that 2007 will be a record hot year, Chinese meteorologists forecast that 2007 is another bad year for China.

Dong Wenjie, Director of the National Climate Center, announced last December in Beijing that agricultural production in 2007 will be negatively affected by natural disasters more than in a normal year. This year will see a relatively larger number of extreme weather events, with south China prone to floods and the north prone to droughts during the flood season.

The British Government's weather forecasting division projects that the world is likely to experience its warmest recorded year in 2007 because of the effects of El Niño-a warming of the eastern Pacific's equatorial waters that occurs every two to seven years-and an increase of greenhouse gases from human activities. In a statement posted on its website on January 4, England-based Met Office forecasts that there is a 60 percent chance that this year will be hotter than 1998, the current warmest year.

During an interview with China Youth Daily, Ren Guoyu, a climate change expert with CMA, said it is hard to tell the credibility of this prediction. He thinks that for temperatures of 2007 to beat the current record, two conditions must be met: First, El Niño, which started in the middle of 2006, must be strong enough; second, there is no major volcano eruption.