Saturday, March 27, 2010

No Moore island : completely submerged by rising water levels

An island located in the Bay of Bengal that were a cause of fighting between India and Bangladesh over the last thirty years, has been engulfed by waves two days ago.
So the rising sea levels caused by global warming was responsible for finally resolving the dispute between the two countries.

Named "New Moore" by the Hindus and "South Talpatti" by the Bengalis, the island of 2.5 km² ((27,000 sq ft) located in the Sunderbans, emerged in the aftermath of the Bhola cyclone in 1970, first discovered by a U.S. satellite in 1974, has been swamped by the waves.
Before, various remote sensing surveys showed that this unhabited island had expanded gradually to an area of about 10 km² (110,000 sq ft) at low tide -at most, about 3.5 km (2.2 mi) in length and 3 km (1.9 mi) in width-, including a number of ordinarily submerged shoals. The highest elevation of the island had never exceeded two meters above sea level.

Announced by oceanographer Sugata Hazra (a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta), this disappearance was confirmed by satellite images and marine patrols.
"The two countries failed to resolve during the years of talks was set by global warming" quipped Sugata Hazra warning before a dozen other islands of the archipelago could also disappear. Scientists at the Jadavpur University have indeed found an alarming rise in sea level over the last ten years in the Bay of Bengal. During the last decade, the increase has reached an annual average of 5 mm (3 mm until 2000).

Bangladesh is and will be one of the countries the most affected by global warming, its 150 million inhabitants living mainly in a delta close to the level of the sea. The Bangladeshi authorities think that 18% of the coastline will be submerged and 20 million people have to be displaced by 2050 if, according to expert forecasts of climate, sea level rises one meter over the next four decades.

Links :

1 comment: