By Steven Goddard and Anthony Watts
From the New York Daily News via Associated Press reports :
Global warming resolves 30-year land dispute between India, Bangladesh: Coveted island sinks
By NIRMALA GEORGE, Associated Press Writer Nirmala George, Associated Press Writer – Wed Mar 24, 9:29 am ET
NEW DELHI – For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island’s gone.
New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said. “What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming,” said Hazra.
Note in the map below that the island was a river estuary, meaning it wasn’t made out of rock as claimed. It was made out of mud and sand. From Wikipedia:
The island was situated only two kilometers from the mouth of the Hariabhanga River. The emergence of the island was first discovered by an American satellite in 1974 that showed the island to have an area of 2,500 sq meters (27,000 sq ft). Later, various remote sensing surveys showed that the island had expanded gradually to an area of about 10,000 sq meters (110,000 sq ft) at low tide, including a number of ordinarily submerged shoals. The highest elevation of the island had never exceeded two meters above sea level. [1]
…
The island was claimed by both Bangladesh and India, although neither country established any permanent settlement there because of the island’s geographical instability. India had reportedly hoisted the Indian flag on South Talpatti in 1981 and established a temporary base of Border Security Forces (BSF) on the island, regularly visiting with naval gunships. [3][4]
The AP claim (probably from Seth Borenstein) is that global warming induced sea level rise has submerged the island, and that is complete nonsense.
Let’s look at sea level trends in the region. Here’s the NOAA Tides and Currents map of the area from their interactive web site.
NOAA’s nearest tide gauge shows sea level rising in that region at 0.54 mm / year, which means that would take nearly 2000 years for sea level to rise one meter. See the plot below:
Note that since the island was first discovered in 1974, the sea level graph above shows 19.4 mm (0.76 inches) rise based on a rate of 0.54mm/year.
Sea level rise is a relative phenomenon. It can be caused by sea rising, or land sinking. Sort of like sitting on a train at the station, and you can’t tell if your train has started moving or the adjacent one.
Looking at a satellite image of the Bangladesh delta, one can see how tides, currents, silts, and other factors shape what is a tenuous boundary between land and sea:
Temporary estuary islands and sandbars appear and disappear all the time worldwide. Sometimes it can take a few years, sometimes a few centuries. Note that most of the area near South Talpatti Island is only 1-3 meters above sea level anyway, which means that such low lying islands made of mud and sand are prone to the whims of tide and currents and weather.
Low lying islands are modified by nature on a regular basis. For example we have Chandeleur Lighthouse in Louisiana
From USGS:
The lighthouse was situated on land until Hurricane Georges (September 28, 1998). After that the island had eroded from under the lighthouse such that the lighthouse appeared to be in open water. Since Georges, although the island had reformed behind the lighthouse, the lighthouse remained in open water. The pre-Ivan photo (August 11, 2004) shows the lighthouse in open water about 30 m from the shoreline, and the northern tip of the island was relatively broad and extended several hundred meters north of the lighthouse.
…
It was probably the cumulative effect of four hurricanes in 7 years that resulted in the deep erosion (evidenced by lack of shoaling) seen now after Hurricane Ivan.
And looking further back in time, islands have disappeared before: from the Sarasota Herald – May 29, 1937
While we are on the subject of islands disappearing into the Indian Ocean, even more interesting is the 2002 discovery nearby of a 9,000 year old city, submerged 36 metres off the coast of India.
==================
The city is believed to predate the Harappan civilisation
Lost city ‘could rewrite history’
By BBC News Online’s Tom Housden
The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history.
Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old.
The vast city – which is five miles long and two miles wide – is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.
=================
How many Hummers were they driving 9,000 years ago? Chalk up another clueless AGW claim. Sea level rises and/or land subsides, estuary flows change, and sandbars appear and disappear. In this case of a tiny sandbar/island near the Bangladesh delta, it has nothing to do with global warming.
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It’s funny how this sea level rise eats small uninhabitated islands first. As if to warn us. Tomorrow it could come back and take the UK. Or NZ. Or Madagascar. But today, only New Moore Island.
Hmmm, maybe it would have made better news if they had called the island “Ancient Moore Island”.
Why should we take note of a NOAA tide-gauge history in North Eastern India, which indicates a tiny sea level rise, when they completely ignore a tide-gauge in Tasmania which has no increase at all for the last 150 years?
(sigh) Next Toyota will blame their current woes on global warming.
They should re-name it “No Moore Island.”
Sand bars and other such temporary river estuary features come and go as a result of both river flooding and storm surges. Along our coast is the remains of a ship called the Hydrabad which was blown onto our coast in 1878. Even as recently as the 1960’s (when I was a kid) people could dive off the wreck into reasonably deep water at high tide. Visiting the site today one finds the wreck mostly buried in sand above the high tide mark.
Sand dunes are living geological features. Some of the largest stretches of moving sand dunes in the southern hemisphere are along the Manawatu/Horowhnua coast line on the southern west coast of the North Island in New Zealand. If sea levels were rising at the rates claimed by those people then one would expect the Hydrabad to be surrounded by water. This is not happening. Our land mass is slowly increasing. The coast has many dozens of Km’s to go to get back to where it was during the last ice age but it is still heading outwards, and not back to the mountains as the scaremongers would have people believe.
OT, a week ago (March 18th) we experienced the coldest summer air temperature in the past 55 years (as far as the data I have goes back). The 0.5 degrees C was 0.2 lower than the Feb 22nd 2003 that previously held that record. There are NO other days apart from those two, for our southern summer ( Dec solstice to March equinox) that get below 2 degrees C in the summers from 1954-55 to now. The -3.6 degree C grass minimum and ensuing frost is some 6 to 8 weeks early by normal standards. An interesting cold season is in the offing, if this little rogue wave is anything to go by. 2003 was interesting here. A huge polar blast with heavy snow to low levels at the start of July, then virtually nothing! Only time will tell.
Cheers
Coops
Sand bah humbug !
Two other factors are at work here. It’s likely that the Ganges Delta, like any large delta, is being isostatically depressed by the weight of deposited sediment, contributing an unequivocally non-AGW-related component to sea-level changes; and the sediments themselves will settle and consolidate as water is squeezed out and the long process of lithification into shales and mudstones begins. I have no idea what the magnitudes of these two components might be, but it seems an interesting field of inquiry.
Another problem, which is usually misreported by enviro-journalists, is over-abstraction of fresh ground-water, which in areas close to the sea “floats” as a “lens” above salt water. Over-pump it (usually for irrigation) and the salt water comes up the well-head, accompanied by AP hacks shrieking “Global warmening! The sea is rising! We’re all going to die!”.
And of course there is increased flooding due to deforestation in the Ganges-Brahmaputra catchment.
Lots of enviro-bother in the Sundarbans, true enough. None of it down to global warming, though.
I would appear to be slightly worse than just sloppy reporting. Here’s an article that seems to claim a paper by Hazra in 2002, claimed that 2.2 mm of the claimed p/a change was due to natural subsidence.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/dc-comment/climate-change-hoax-sinking-island-316
Deltas sink. Why else are they fishing statues out of the harbour at Alexandria? Maybe ancient Egyptian statues are a sign of CAGW, everything else seems to be.
Should read “It would” not “I would”, pesky early mornings.
Could someone please explain how, even *IF* global warming was real and was causing sea level rise, how the effects could be local and not global?? Water does tend to run downhill, so absent any change in land elevation, a sea level rise would be global.
Unless, of course, one of the predicted effects of global warming is localized changes in the force of gravity? 🙂
Good job digging up the back story. My compliments to the staff.
Bengal Bay sea level change:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/l14.png
It is only a matter of time before some troll drags in the Carteret Islands, so I may as well pitch in and get my revenge in first.
Google “Carteret Islands” and you will get yards of AGW shroudwaving from all the usual suspects. Monbiot / Grauniad, BBC / Daily Mail / Oxfam …
However, even Wikipedia has to point out that the land is sinking and why:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carteret_Islands
The AP fails basic science once again it seems. Sandbars and barrier Islands come and go on the whim of the wind and surf. There is a classic example of this right near where I live: The Ocean City Inlet.
Prior to 1933 the barrier island that the city of Ocean City sat on was the same island as Assateague. In 1933 a Hurricane came along and cut a wide path through the island to the Assawoman bay.
The story, in it’s full alarmist glory, is carried currently in the Guardian. Interestingly, while it appears in the ‘Comment is Free’ section, there is no facility for commenting there.
It’s notable that the “It’s Natural” points Steve & Anthony made — and there are more that could have been made* — were deliberately omitted from this AP New Moore Island story. This is a plain indication of bias — but since it was a sin of omission, I guess they figured no one would notice. It’s one more item in the scale to be weighed when the Day of Judgment arrives.
* E.g., by googling for:
site:wattsupwiththat.com mangrove level
It’s probably been washed away by the deluge of Himalayan glacier water as 2035 fast approaches;>)
So, a lump of mud, silt, sand 50m x 50m (54yds x 54yds) sitting at the mouth of a huge delta, expands over 30 years or so to 100m x 100m at low tide, (108yds x 108yds), then gets washed away. Wow, never let reality get in the way of a sensational story! Never mind, give it a few years & it will turn up again, probably in a slightly different position! (Made by aliens I expect, I’m sure I read it in one of the Sunday papers so it just has to be true).
Has anyone found anything that reliably supports the existence of the underwater city in the Gulf of Cambay? Looks highly unlikely on the strength of the Wiki piece and the repeated recycling of the original very “watery” claims all over the net . . . . . And a sea level rise of 120 feet seems to go beyond anything postulated by Rhodes (Fairbridge Curve) Fairbridge et al. Might be something in it for descendants of Noah though.
I claim that dune quickly in the name of Her Majes….glug….glug…teeeee.
I love these stories. They are so utterly moronic only a complete suggestible moron could fall for this nonsense. It is like an April Fools joke played early to catch out the gullible and expose them.
Gary Hladik: “(sigh) Next Toyota will blame their current woes on global warming.”
Now you’re talking, forget global warming, this is serious stuff. I’ve just spent four days trying to replace a front headlamp on our latest Toyata. I couldn’t believe it, you needed screwdrivers, and a spanner, and even then the cover needed a crowbard to remove a cover.
Putting the headlamp cover back on required two strong people (one to pull back the windscreen washer filler funnel) and the other person to try to manoevre the cover into place.
Then the blasted thing snapped … so after reinforcing it with steel rods (screws) and alradh..??… glue, I finally got it back in place on evening number day four.
And the job would have been a lot more hassle, except we’d got the engine covers off because the headlamps fill up with water … something which they also knew about but didn’t do anything about!!
If they can’t even get changing a regular item like a headlamp right … something you should be able to do in the dark at the side of the road, if they seal their headlamps at the bottom and let the water in the top so they fill up like fishtanks, then this is the last time I’m buying a Toyota
We have as much as 50-60cm changes on Georgian Bay with thousands of Islands. Mostly rock in the area and they many minor Islands submurge to reappear after the melt and run off has raised the water levels tempererally.
I little unhabited sandbar?
Talk about sensationalism. And some people eat this garbage up.
Like governments that say look at this reference…it must be true.
It should be pointed out that this island only emerged fifty years ago-presumably formed from slt deposition. Silt islands come and go and no doubt another one is forming elsewhere i the estuary or the silt is accreting to the mainland somewhere.
Tonyb
Isn’t there some kind of medical treatment that could be prescribed for this? Electric shock therapy or something? Maybe a straight jacket?