Is the IPCC wrong about Bangladesh losing land to the sea because of global warming?

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• It’s a good question but once again, all the facts need to be considered before arriving at a conclusion. The report you cite omits many of the salient facts, not last of which is the full explanation as to why the land area has increased in some places and why the overall land area of Bangladesh has decreased.

Your quoted text refers to research conducted by Maminul Haque Sarker, a morphologist with the Bangladeshi Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services, the purpose of his report being to identify the causes of unstable behavior in Bangladesh’s rivers.

Sarker’s research concludes that the creation of new land was in the order of a “few tens of kilometres per year” and that this had been caused by the Assam Earthquake. The quake created some 45 billion cubic metres of sediment and much of this entered the Brahmaputra River via its tributaries. The lighter sediments of silt and clay were washed downriver and settled in the Padma River. This new land is unconsolidated and unsuitable for either habitation or agriculture. Indeed, the Padma has such unstable river-banks that of the 2330 miles of banking under one fifth can be put to any use.

So whilst it’s factually accurate to state that the land-area has increased (in some places), it has to be noted that the reason is due to an earthquake and that the newly created land is both unstable and unusable. Further, it should also be noted that no mention is made of the far greater loss of land that has occurred elsewhere in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is a very vulnerable country, much of it is low lying and every year about a quarter of the land is flooded. However, in recent years the incidence of flooding has significantly increased. Five of the worst floods on record have occurred since 1987 and nowadays it’s common for 40% of the land to be flooded each year. 2007 witnessed the worst flooding in over 100 years and resulted in millions being left homeless and thousands of lives lost.

19th Century – 6 major floods (1 every 17 years)
20th Century – 18 major floods (1 every 5 years)
21st Century – 3 major floods (1 every 3 years)


• As is usually the case, there is no one single cause for the increase in both flood frequency and intensity; many separate factors are involved.

The major rivers of Bangladesh are fed by meltwater runoff from the Himalayan Glaciers. Contrary to some of the recent comments on Answers, the glaciers are in fact in an advanced state of retreat - particularly those of the Nepali and Tibetan foothills (foothills in the Himalaya aren’t like foothills in the UK, they’re more like the Alps or the Andes). A more significant cause of flooding can be attributed to the extensive deforestation of the headwater areas in Nepal and Tibet, this leads to reduced evapotranspiration, soil erosion and increasingly rapid runoff (changes in the micro and meso climates also contribute to accelerated glacial melt).

Ordinarily the causes of flooding in Bangladesh are the Monsoon rains but increasingly there have been other reasons. The 2007 event for example, was primarily caused by a combination of exceptional rainfall and unusually high temperatures leading to a rapid thaw of snow and ice in the Himalaya, this was further compounded by a subsequent cyclone. The 2006 and 2008 events also had their primary cause as exceptional rainfall whereas the main cause of the flooding last year was cyclonic storms.


• The IPCC report you refer to is the third assessment report (TAR or 3AR) which had estimated that the average global sea-level could rise by as much as 590mm by the end of the century. The report was published in 2001 using data from earlier reports. A more extensive document using sophisticated satellite telemetry as part of the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) was published in 2009. The GRACE study reveals that sea-levels are rising faster than had previously been thought and has produced a revised figure for maximum sea level rises by the end of the century of 1400mm.

Given that 80% of Bangladesh is a floodplain and that 70% of the land is at an altitude of less then one metre, then it’s inevitable that large tracts of the country will be lost to the rising sea. Quite how much land is lost will be determined by how much sea-levels do rise. A figure of 17% by 2050 is possible, personally I think that 12% to 13% is more likely.

Already millions of people in Bangladesh have lost their homes to rising sea levels. The largest single evacuation of climate refugees to date occurred on Bhola Island, the largest island in Bangladesh, where some 500,000 people have been evacuated.

Bhola was 6400km² and is now 3000km², the loss of land from this one island alone far exceeds the amount of land gained in Sanker’s report.


Summary of Maminul Haque Sarker’s Research
http://www.cegisbd.com/pdf/january2004.pdf

Disaster, Climate Change and Coastal Vulnerabilities in Bangladesh
http://saarc-sdmc.nic.in/pdf/workshops/goa/bangladesh/Disaster,%20Climate%20Change%20&%20Coastal%20Vulnerabilites%20in%20Bangladesh.pdf

Global Archive of Large Flood Events
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/Archives/index.html

Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/

Climate Refugees / Bhola Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_refugee#The_first_climate_refugees

IPCC TAR
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/...Show more

This is typical from the IPCC global warming marketing department but I am hopeful now that many more scientists and investigative journalists are peering through the cracks in the thin ice of this façade and that with time everybody will look back at Global Warming and dismiss it to the history books under section 'hoax' beside Global Cooling, UFO's, Flat Earth Society, Intelligent Design, Faked Moon Landings, Astrology, Crop Circles, etc!...Show more

Yes. For over thirty years the scare of rising oceans has been the mantra of the IPCC and the "Global Warming" political action groups.

The Maldives used to be the place that alarmists pointed to and predicted that soon the atolls would be completely under water. There was a photo of a tree by the coast that was used to show the effect of the oceans moving further up the beaches of the islands.

This "Marker Tree" as named by the environmentalists showed that over thirty years passed and there was no increase in ocean levels.

So the environmentalists did what should be expected of them and cut down the tree. They wanted to remove any evidence that the Earth isn't warming, the ice caps aren't melting, and the oceans are not rising....Show more

Yep... it goes AGAINST the Global Warming Religion and mantra.. they will spout lies and hope the people of the region they're talking about dont say anything because they'll get MONEY!

The plain fact is.. AGW is NOT supportable in any way shape or form. But, people have bought into this RELIGION of HEAT so to speak.. all they can do is mindlessly chant .. the earth has a fever.. the earth has a fever.. we're all going to drown! AAAAHHHHH

:)...Show more

I would say that it looks like the IPCC has got something wrong again. They seem to have forgotten the sediment from the rivers that usually add to the land mass. Then again, the IPCC will twist this somehow saying that because of man made climate change we have seen an increase in sediment then in the past 5000 years and thus it's man made land not naturally occurring....Show more