On that day, Lin received congratulation letters from home and broad, for he was a contributor to the Working Group II Report of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report released last year. In the past 18 years, Lin has edited and reviewed more than a dozen assessment reports.

Last year's report included a climate forecast model made by Chinese scientists, which was the only model in the report built by a developing country.

"I am proud of my colleagues," Lin said. "So many scholars and experts have worked in the field. Their job is not well-known to the public, but the job is very meaningful."

The IPCC has just celebrated its 20th birthday. It was founded in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to provide scientific consultation to the world on climate change. The then President of the WMO was Zou Jingmeng, who was the head of the China Meteorological Administration at that time.

China has actively participated in the meetings and activities of the IPCC. So far, more than a hundred Chinese scientists have contributed to or reviewed assessment reports or special reports of the IPCC.

Since 1990, Lin has participated in numerous negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and he has recognized the impact of climate change and the urgency to mitigate it. Lin organized a team of researchers to conduct research on agriculture and climate change. Because of the uncertainty in climate change, many people think it is something remote and have not paid much attention to its economic and political impact. Some policymakers have not put climate change high on their agenda. Lin has repeatedly reminded the public that climate change is not something that could happen, but something that will happen.

"We will use accurate data to verify our scientific hypothesis, so that we can tell people to act early in mitigating the risk of climate change," Lin said. Climate change is a long process, but the process is accelerating. In the coming few decades, we will experience more rapid changes than in the past one or two centuries. In the past century, the average global temperature rose by 0.74 degree Celsius. Since 1975, the average global temperature has increased by 0.2 degree Celsius every 10 years.

In the last two decades, Lin and his team have walked all over China, monitoring the activity of animals and plants and collecting a large amount of information. They have built two mathematical models. One is a regional climate model and the other a model on the impact of climate change on agriculture.