@vicar.
Au contraire my friend who wanders between pages. I do go out. The day before yesterday I photographically documented the damage done by freezing in my direct neighborhood and surroundings. Yesterday I did the same but then with a spin around and over Xishan mountain.

Conclusion:

1. There is indeed a lot of damage.
2. Damage is restricted to planted trees and shrubs and then restricted to trees and shrubs that should not be here but are planted here to give Kunming a more tropic/sub-tropic look.

And as tigertiger already pointed out this all has to do with bad gardening. That is having the wrong trees and shrubs for the climate zone and the silly practice of overwatering these. Overwatering leads to the trees becoming lazy and not developing their root system. In my compound this goes even further; there the trees are watered with water which is pumped up from the ground just under the trees. From the trees that did dye and got removed it was clear to see that they had not expanded their roots since planting some 5-6 years ago.

Solution:

Get trees and shrubs that are better adapted to the local situation and need less water.
This might give Kunming a lesser tropical outlook but then we don't have to look at those horrible covers they have to put on now every winter (And didn't work this winter).

Outside Kunming things were better. Local trees are far less affected. Main damage is done to eucalyptus trees which should not be here indeed.

This was good to see on the road leading from the Dwarfs Empire north to Taiping. This new road has trees planted in the middle of which many are damaged while on both sides local trees are in full bloom.

Still there has been excessive leave fall thus there is a greater danger of bush fires. (The bush fire prevention teams are in place again along the roads).

The first effect of climate change is more extreme weather. On the long run warmer weather. Who knows in some years Kunming might be suitable for sub-tropical trees.
Meanwhile another effect can be a serious disruption of nut production in Yunnan. Walnuts are an important crop in Yunnan and a warming weather pattern threatens the present trees while for planting them more north it is still too cold. There are predictions that warming might be quicker than the economic life span of a walnut plantation.

Now you probably will say: Here we go again, negative outlook etc etc, he's gone nuts. Well my friend there is indeed no yin without yang but your go happy ostrich mentality is not getting us anywhere.

I'm not going to go on anymore about this because my argument all along is that fossil fuels burnt by humans does not cause the climate change we are seeing or has been or is being predicted to be. I saw on another thread you blamed the recent drought in East Asian parts on climate change. Not a word on how dams cause drought and funny that a particular dam connected to this now gonna help by releasing water. If you are going to be the scientist, use more variables please and make a difference rather than adding to the blinkered view. There are enough healthy natural resources on earth for everyone. FACT. Not everyone has access to those resources and suffer. A common dilemma throughout human history. You seem to have the time, research and publish your findings on this.

@vicar.

The sentence "The water crisis in Southeast Asia has been blamed largely on climate change strengthened weather phenomenon El Niño." Was taken from the article. Apparently you didn't read it.

Head definitely deep into the sand.
How is the mathematics getting on?

Dams can cause more rainfall and storms, too. Not much research on this but kind of makes sense. Put all the variables together such as location, altitude, temperature, much larger (in dams) or lesser bodies of water (because of dams) than usual changing the condensation cycles of the area etc will inevitably - change the climate. One of the I first things I mentioned in this thread relates to just that. Water vapor has the greatest effect on the climate.

@vicar.
"Not a word on how dams cause drought".
Do you expect me to know everything?
OK some words on dams.
The first idea about dams is to store water for irrigation and or electricity generation. The sad thing is that a lot of dams created for irrigation made things worse. The irrigation was intended to produce more crops and to allow double cropping (Two crops a year). This was largely driven by the public's desire for cheap food and the politicians desire to fulfil the wishes of the public (With a spinoff in pocketing some of the money from the dam construction).
The irrigation enabled high yield crops and everybody was happy until they realised that:
The reservoirs filled up with mud. (Particular problem in places like North Korea)
The fields were no longer fertilised by the previous annual flooding. (Particular problem in places like Egypt)
The fields became too salty to grow the crops. (Particular problem in places like India).
To water intensive crops were grown like the oranges in California, and the abundance of water let to wastage of it like lawns in California.

So dams are often a very temporary solution for an issue. It would be better to look at better adaptation of the crops to the existing conditions.

Dams created for electricity production can have a negative effect because they alter the seasonal variation in water runoff which effects the fertilisation effects of floodings and other effects of the disturbance of the runoff variation (Mekong). Also some dams have been specifically built to stop floodings (Three Gorges Dam, Aswan dam).

Large bodies of water can effect weather patterns but weather patterns are more effected by deforestation and "improved" drainage which both have a great effect on land based water vapour patterns.

Thus far my 2 cents on dams.

Rather surprisingly, most of those bushes & trees that I'd thought had died in my xiaoqu, after being cut back rather drastically, are now beginning to send out leetle sprouts.

Lucky you.
In my compound and street still dead as can be. Bark peeling of the trunks and no sprouts what so ever.
The IV drip bags are empty for weeks now.

@Alien,
We must live in the same place. There was a lot of dead looking stuff around the community even just a week ago, but now it looks like a tropical park.
I just wish they would pick up all the dead stuff that was cut down.

All the dead stuff cut down in my xiaoqu has been picked up.

Some say Kunming's weather has changed because the dimensions of the lake were altered many years ago. The locals say it did not used to get so cold over the winter.