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China to Send Fresh Crew to Tiangong Space Station

A staff member poses for photos in front of a board featuring China's astronauts, after a press conference ahead of the Shenzhou-18 space mission, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, in northwest China on April 24, 2024. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP)
A staff member poses for photos in front of a board featuring China's astronauts, after a press conference ahead of the Shenzhou-18 space mission, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, in northwest China on April 24, 2024. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP)
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China to Send Fresh Crew to Tiangong Space Station

A staff member poses for photos in front of a board featuring China's astronauts, after a press conference ahead of the Shenzhou-18 space mission, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, in northwest China on April 24, 2024. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP)
A staff member poses for photos in front of a board featuring China's astronauts, after a press conference ahead of the Shenzhou-18 space mission, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, in northwest China on April 24, 2024. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP)

China will send a fresh crew to its Tiangong space station on Thursday evening, Beijing's Manned Space Agency announced, the latest mission in a program that aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030.

The Shenzhou-18 mission -- crewed by three astronauts -- is scheduled to take off at 8:59 pm Thursday (1259 GMT) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, Beijing announced Wednesday.

It will be led by Ye Guangfu, a fighter pilot and astronaut who was previously part of the Shenzhou-13 crew in 2021.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Commander Ye described the launch as a "new beginning".

"Facing the challenge, my two teammates and I are fully prepared. We are full of confidence in completing this mission!" he said.

Li Guangsu, in turn, said he wanted to take a "good look at the beautiful blue planet, the splendid mountains and rivers of the motherland, and find the places that have nurtured me along the way".

"I also want to see for my lovely child if the stars in the sky can really twinkle or not," he added.

The latest batch of Tiangong astronauts will stay in orbit for six months, carrying out experiments in gravity and physics, as well as in life sciences, Agence France Presse reported.

They will also carry out a "project on high-resolution global greenhouse gas detection", Deputy Director General of the CMSA Lin Xiqiang said, according to state news agency Xinhua.

"All pre-launch preparations are on schedule," he said.

"They will work with other active astronauts to carry out the follow-up space station missions and to realize the country's manned lunar landing."

The Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace", is the crown jewel of a space program that has landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon, and made China the third country to independently put humans in orbit.

It is constantly crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts, with construction completed in 2022.

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Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
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Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Climate change is driving changes in rainfall patterns across the world, scientists said in a paper published on Friday, which could also be intensifying typhoons and other tropical storms.

Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year's most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China's eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.

Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say.

Researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75% of the world's land area had seen a rise in "precipitation variability" or wider swings between wet and dry weather.

Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.

"(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods," said Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study.

"This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods."

FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMS

Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behavior of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.

"I believe higher water vapor in the atmosphere is the ultimate cause of all of these tendencies toward more extreme hydrologic phenomena," Sherwood told Reuters.

Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.

While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University.

"In general, warmer sea surface temperature is a favorable condition for tropical cyclone development," she said.

In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.

Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.

The decrease in the number of typhoons is due to the uneven pattern of ocean warming, with temperatures rising faster in the western Pacific than the east, said Feng Xiangbo, a tropical cyclone research scientist at the University of Reading.

Water vapor capacity in the lower atmosphere is expected to rise by 7% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, with tropical cyclone rainfall in the United States surging by as much as 40% for each single degree rise, he said.