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

• 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/banglad...

Global Archive of Large Flood Events

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/Archives/index.ht...

Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/

Climate Refugees / Bhola Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_refugee#The_f...

IPCC TAR

http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/

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!

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.

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

:)

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.

Dana, the sediment isn't raising the sea level, it is raising the land level and therefore gaining on the sea. Basins and river deltas generally continously sink as sediments pile on top of them. You can think of a continental crust as an ice cube in water. The continental crust can be thought of as floating on the mantle of the earth. If you pile dirt on the ice cube, it will sink. This is essentially what is happening in Bangladesh however in this circumstance the dirt is piling up faster than it is sinking. In other places such as Venice, it has been sinking faster than accumulation. The sea level is slowly rising and has been for thousands of years and much of Bangladesh is very low in elevation. Unfortunately, they may suffer if sea levels rise significantly.

Great article,

The world is not ending as predicted. Don't everyone panic though. We have another model in the hopper that is sure to predict disaster.

Dana, I love how you completely missed the point that Bangladesh is not likely to be under water in the next 50 years.

Your case for pouring trillions of dollars into CO2 is for the following reasons.

1.) Increased level of drought and flooding affecting crops (not really good to mention this has you cannot tell what the local climates will do even if AGW is true, some may become more able to produce crops, especially in the North).

2.) Increased level in hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. (Given the number of hurricanes ahve gone down and there is an article by a pro-AGW scientists that suggests it will go down if temp increase, this si really not a convincing argument).

3.) Flooding caused by the sea. This article shows that at least for Bangaldesh, flood refugees are not likely to occur any time soon, at least not by 2050.

Given this, your argument for disaster falls apart and even if you are right about AGW, we have time to develop a good solution that does not involve taxation during a recession.

One such solution could be loosening the red tape on nuclear power plants (note this is a reduction in gov't involvement, not an increase) and giving them some tax benefits. Add to this, not allowing the big oil companies to interefere with the developmetn of electric cars (such as buying up patents that they have no intention of ever making), and we would be well on our way to reducing CO2 and not killing our economy in the process.

Seriously what are you AGWers thinking? We provide a solution to a problem that we do not even believe exists. The solution is better than your crap and tax bill and more effective at dealing with the "problem" of CO2 and you still whine. Who is being unscientific? Who is not caring about the environment? Is it your need to move to socialism that is driving this? Otherwise, call your dem congressmen ask them to kill crap and tax and start supporting nuclear?

Elsewise, support

1.) Biofuels, which produce as much CO2 as petro, costs more, and reduces our ability to grow crops.

2.) Solar cells which take 15 years to generate the power that it took to produce them in the first place.

3.) Getting EPA approval to sell you homes.

It's not really the IPCC's fault. Their 2007 IPCC Report had indicated that approximately 5,000,000 Bangladeshis were exepected to jump up and down during the New Years celebration of 2009 thereby lowering the mean land level by 0.457M causing flooding and land loss.

However, the Bangladeshi Guru Man Rajiv whom they contacted by pidgeon courier has since died and it turns out that no Bangladheshis actually jumped up and down last year.

I understand the IPCC intends to amend that section of their report in 2035 (unless the report completely disappears).

Yes.

Every time Bangladesh has trouble it's always about water, so it makes them easy to scare about it.

If we'd been experiencing what the alarmunists said we are, we'd be seeing pictures on the news daily of "disappearing land" there.

It's just another lie in a long series of lies.

Edit...

Note Dana's subtle admission that he would ignore information that doesn't support his case... typical, actually.

Nope.

What you quote is about river delta building, which historically has been the largest factor. Bangladesh has erected dikes recently, to aid the process. These are the people who are speaking, the dike builders, in the article cited:

"If we build more dams using superior technology, we may be able to reclaim 4,000 to 5,000 square kilometres in the near future," Rahman said. "

But, even now, it's being offset by rising sea levels, since it's VERY slow. In the future, if we take no action, it will clearly be overpowered.

And there are a host of other factors in play. Drought, storms, etc. Here's two much more thoughtful takes on the overall situation.

"Bangladesh’s Climate Change Emergency"

http://csis.org/files/publication/sam_136.pdf

"Bangladesh: At the mercy of climate change"

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-c...

The "IPCC" doesn't make this stuff up. It simply gathers the consensus opinions of scientists from all around the world.

Because of these facts, and a more comprehensive approach, Bangladeshi scientists disagree with the bureaucrats you quote:

" Climate change and security: The case of Bangladesh"

"It is estimated that in eastern Bangladesh alone 14,000 tons of grain production would be lost to sea level rise in 2030 and 252,000 tons would be lost by 2075. Threatening the richest and most productive region of the country, sea level rise could have dramatic consequences for the Bangladeshi economy.

A recent study estimates that a gross domestic product (GDP) decrease in the range of 28% to 57% could result from a 1.0m sea level rise. Increased flooding from glacial melt, more intense monsoons, or more intense cyclones could also adversely affect agriculture in the near term by periodically inundating much agricultural land. "

Obayedul Haque Patwari, Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2009/10/23/8...

Those river delta areas are some of Bangladesh' most important agricultural lands. If (when?) they get flooded with salt water, there will be a lot of desperately hungry people headed away from the coast. The border with India won't stop them. Chaos, and likely war.