Tibet will build 10 observatories in Lhasa next year to monitor the urban heat island effect as the number of residents and vehicles in the capital city rise.

The heat island effect has resulted in more scorching summer days and worsening pollution in urban areas, said Basang, an official of the Lhasa Municipal Meteorological Bureau who goes by one name as is common with many Tibetans.

The observatories will be constructed near the railway station, the Potala Palace and in other locations. They will monitor air pressure, temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, precipitation and others.

Lhasa Meteorological Bureau scientists will analyze the collected data to try understanding how the heat island effect comes into being in the high-altitude city.

The plan was announced by the Lhasa Meteorological Bureau days after experts expressed concern that global warming was threatening the ecology of the Himalayan region.

"The warming climate has caused more meteorological disasters than ever in Tibet," said Song Shanyun, director of the Tibet Regional Meteorological Bureau.

Problems such as receding snow lines, shrinking glaciers, drying grasslands and desert expansion were increasingly threatening the natural eco-system. In addition, natural disasters, such as droughts, landslides, snowstorms and fires, were more frequent and calamitous now, Song added.

The region, home to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, regarded as a barometer for the world's climate, has seen various tell-tale signs of global warming.

A Tibet Regional Bureau study revealed the temperature in Tibet had risen by 0.3 degrees Celsius every decade, about 10 times the speed of the national average of 0.4 degrees each century.

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2007)