Extreme weather last year, including high temperatures, drought and heavy rains, caused the worst damage in China in a decade, a senior meteorological official said on Wednesday.
Song Lianchun, chief of the National Climate Center, said extreme weather last year resulted in direct economic losses of more than 500 billion yuan ($75 billion).
Areas of crops affected by torrential rain accounted for 41 percent of the total areas affected by meteorological disasters in 2010. Another 38 percent of affected areas suffered from drought, it said.
Zheng Guoguang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration, said at the conference that increasing extreme weather has made improving weather forecasting a priority.
"Meteorological monitoring in areas prone to flood and geological disasters need to be strengthened," he said.
To minimize the damage brought by change in the weather, the administration pledged to increase the accuracy of its forecasts over the next five years.
