Global warming may be a real event in the short term, but global climate changes have occured for all of history and are nothing new and are certainly not influenced much, if any, by mankind. There have been many periods in our geologic past when the world was much warmer and others when it was much colder - with the most extreme periods occuring before there were any people around in any numbers to affect it. The current bru-ha-ha is political in nature, pure and simple. For one, I would enjoy a slightly warmer Earth and so would all the others who live in northern climates. As for islands slowly disappearing, such is the nature of things - some areas of Earth are slowly rising and others are slowly declining due to slight shifts in the Earth's crust along fault lines. An island only a few feet above sea level is doomed to disappear over time due to wave action and tidal effect alone - this is not really news at all. Only news that supports the alarmists is reported - news to the contrary goes unreported since it does not "fit" the model. I am sorry to see Accuweather getting on board this train - if you had been around in the 70's you would have been on the "coming ice age" train that was so popular then. Just forecast and report the weather. Thanks for listening.

Laura,

Did you bother to research this item? This island was in a river delta--not the most stable of locations--and it disappeared 22! years ago.

Perhaps it disappeared as a result of Carl Sagan's nuclear winter, since that was the trendy enviro-disaster forcast back then.

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=207343

I can see the affects of this global warming esspecially in Alaska. Once the glaciers were close to be observed from the highway system, but now they have receeded. More fresh water in the Oceans will cause a Global shift in storms. It is a proven fact. It does not make a difference that the earth has gone through past climatic changes. The fact is we are going through one now. It is affecting us and will continue to change. So please don't change your reporting of the affects of global warming. It doesn't matter if nature, man or God is causing it. Not a one of us are free from these global changes and unfortunitly many are in a danger zone that destroys a lot of lives and homes. Maybe we can contribute in detouring further damage by cutting emissions into the air but the time is now and mans life is short compared to the time it takes to reverse the earths changes.
So do what it takes to move out of the way of danger zones in this country. Nature is not going to wait for us and the heavens will continue to try us if they so choose!

Sorry Dennis, but we have people here who actually believe that secondhand smoke is healthy (re: woodNfish) and reference "science" websites run by people who believe that the twin towers' collapse was due to the anti-absestos movement. The only "extremists" in this argument....is you guys.

I've been a subscriber to Accuweather for years. However, I can't believe you fell for this story.

Tell me, how far has sea level risen since our last cooling period that ended in the '60's? Do you think there may have been other reasons for this "obliteration"?

In response to Dennis' post... 1st, the weather is directly related to this topic and I think it is not only gutsy and brave, but honorable that this site has the balls to grow up with the rest of us and realize that they are reporting the very thing that is the most relevant item in todays news, and weather.. the weather!
Secondly, many "skeptics" such as Dennis that I have come across, are not educated enough in what they are talking about. Yes, the Earth has gone through ups and downs with temperatures... we have the scientific ability to study ice that has been frozen for thousands and thousands of years, just like studying the rings on a tree. The scientists can tell you how cold it was the day that ice became ice, the oxygen and carbon make up of the ice and many more details. Along with study of ice, they have studied trees, dirt, rocks, mountains and rivers. Our science is even better and more accurate now then it was in the 70's, and they were not wrong in the 70's, you just got tired of hearing about it since it didnt affect you that decade. Guess what.. that which you are referring to, the 70's hype.. its here. What they were saying was gonna happen, is happening now.
All of these scientific reports show that the climate changes which are considered normal all include carbon make up lower then what we are currently accumilating. They also show that the changes are not very dramatic when you look at the earth as a whole through time.. a little notch up, and a little notch down. As we all know, the difference between 28 degrees and 38 degrees is the difference between snow or freezing rain. Not much to ruin your life over... however 38 inches of rain, dissapearing islands, insects growing at altitudes they never did before, Katrina, drowning Polar Bears and stranded Penguins (who managed to survive many earth changes before, why cant they now?) all point to things that dismiss the uneducated statements of "The Earth has done this before". Yes, it has done this before, but not in this direction or at this intensity.. and not with the carbon build up we currently have. The carbon build up and the melting of ice (fresh water) in to our salty warm oceans combines for something that the "Dennis's" of the world will be looking to the "me's" of the world in 10 years asking why we didnt tell him this was happening. (We have been telling you for 35 years now!) When the ocean level rises a little more, and the hurricane hits his home.. he will look in to that tv camera crying saying "I didnt know this was going to happen". He will look at the weather stations and ask them "Why didnt you tell me that there was a noted change that was heading us towards this?". If you are giong to use the Earths history for your defense, I suggest you actually read the scientific reports that prove, or disprove what you have to say. You might be shocked that the thing you use as your defense, actually scientifically proves you wrong.

Thank you Accuweather, and Kudos!

Freda S.
Elkton, Va.

PS That slightly warmer Earth you think you would enjoy would gift your children with wonderful new diseases and plagues... I bet they would want you to have been a little warmer these next few years so you could enjoy your new bathing suit in exchange for their life you chose to leave them.

i totally agree with you dennis. i live in the Philippines and i know exactly about sinking islands. here in my country there are seven islands that sink during high tides and there are places that are sinking slowly every year. theres a place in the island of Sorsogon (which is one of the islands here) is one of those which slowly is being "eaten" by the sea. people built large sea walls to keep high tides from claiming more land and it also their way to expose more land even on a low tide.

I find the hysteria surrounding the destruction of this island in the middle of the Ganges/Brahmaputra delta quite interesting. The first thing one must ask is: How does one island disappear due to rising oceans while islands all over the world (and coastlines) experience no significant rise. One would expect a uniform sea level rise all over the world. However, the most interesting aspect to the whole story is the total disregard for the location of the island, right smack dab in the middle of a growing delta. Guess what, folks? What happens to growing deltas? Those of you have had a course in Geology 101 should remember that deltas tend to subside (hence New Orleans now below sea level). I would suspect that the demise of this island is a result of subsidence of the delta due to continuing deposition of sediments. If any of you doubt this, please consult a basic geology text and read it for yourself.

Basically, this is another "scare" tactic being propagated by the MSM and the AGW crowd.

(By the way, I am a registered geologist in four states.)

So, how much has sea level risen since "global warming" began 40 years ago?

Sea levels have risen a few millimeters in the last several years. This is far less than what it would take to cause noticeable flooding. This article really makes no sense and I do not understand why you posted it. The original article was from AP and cited no recognisable sources.

It is this kind of media hysteria that makes many people think global warming is a big scam.
When I see how seriously something like this is treated (the article was carried without comment in many news outlets that routinely carry news from the Associated Press), I have to doubt everything I read about this subject. Are people really that stupid?

Since sea levels are the topic for discussion here, I thought everyone might find the graphs here quite interesting:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Sea_Level_Gallery

Specifically, click on the graphs in the right hand column and look at them closely. The first graph, covering the time period from roughly 1880 to the present appears to be quite alarming. But if one reviews the second graph, covering approximately the last 24,000 years, it puts the first graph in context. It's all about scale.

Ocean levels have remained largely stabilized for the past 2,000 years after a notable rise between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago. The Earth is currently in an interglacial period. If one searches for ice age cycles, it becomes apparent that on a large scale, these cycles are roughly 100,000 years. However, the warmest portion of these cycles, called Interglacials, last between 10,000 and 20,000 years (depends on whom you want to believe). It is estimated that it's been roughly 18,000 years since the earth warmed to it's current range - near even the high end estimate for Interglacials. Therefore, my questions would be:

Will the Interglacial continue with sea levels continuing to rise slightly?

Will the "Global Warming effect" prevent the next ice age from beginning "on time"?

Could the "Global Warming effect" accelerate the decline into the next ice age by tipping the scales quickly?

Make that the LEFT hand column....just don't tell my 4-year-old.

:-D

Below is an original version of the "Rising Seas" story that appeared in a large UK newspaper, The Independent, and in a sanitized form in AP news, in US websites and then as above in this blog. No matter what you think re global warming, this is appalling. Politics and hysteria will preclude any real discussion of it and the media are experts at stoking both.

If you believe the environmental editor for the Independent is not off his rocker, please get help:

Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island
For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports
Published: 24 December 2006

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.

Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

Human cost of global warming: Rising seas will soon make 70,000 people homeless

M.G. Stinnett makes an excellent point. An event at the remove of 22years is hardly current news.Was the story researched before it's posting? If so, why wasn't the relevant information attached to it. True or not, it's this kind of "reporting" that leads many to believe that the news is being slanted to portray the story in a certain, biased, light. Also, I would like to know what Frieda Elkton's expertise is.
Jim Roth

You must be kidding? How could this story be posted as something that contains scientific fact? If you look at a map of this island you will not find it in the Bay of Bengal, it is in the river channel itself. Therefore it is subject to the forces of the river such as shifting sediment or erosion, as well as any plate tectonics in the area. Was this island made of bedrock or volcanic material, or was it just loose sediment? I have looked on the web for a picture of this "inhabited island of 10000 people". I can't find one. Would someone provide a photo of this island with the houses, shops, streets, water system, etc that must have been in place for 10000 inhabitants.

In an earlier post Freda Elkton states:
"Secondly, many "skeptics" such as Dennis that I have come across, are not educated enough in what they are talking about."

My guess is Dennis, and many other posters following him, ARE well-educated. In fact, I have found that many global warming enthusiasts have very little understanding of how our atmosphere, volcanism, general geology, and earth processes operate. They have watched Al Gore's docu-drama and spout his talking points like they are fact. When they engage in a discussion they quickly run out of material and when presented with clear evidence of cyclic changes of our planet and counterpoints to their "facts", they flounder and often resort to namecalling as my sister-in-law did when we had this discussion. She called me a redneck and walked out of the room (I am not a redneck. I am a high school and part-time college instructor of geology in a conservative community in Idaho. I have a master's degree in geology and read anything and everything related to our earth. I told her she should research and investigate more of both sides of this subject. She said she didn't have time because she was raising a family).

The author of this article, without including supporting evidence such as inundation of surrounding islands, practices irresponsible journalism. This adds to the problem of trying to establish fact in science without interference from emotion and inuendo. Until then, I will consider global warming just the latest "crisis" to keep the public frightened.

P.S. What ever happened to the hole in the ozone layer after CFC's were banned? I know - do you?

Has anyone considered the possible impact the construction of the Farraka Barrage, on the Ganges river-1974, has had on the fate of islets such as Lahachara? It has dried up many rivers in Bangaladesh, and has diverted huge amounts of fresh water in an attempt to prevent Kalcuta harbour from silting up. It seems that this fact coupled with other's such as the subsidence of the sea floor in that area, is a much more likely cause of the disapearence of these river delta features, than global warming.
Jim

I am troubled by the statement that 10000 people inhabited this island. It seems like an exaggeration to make a point so I did some simple calculations. I assume since it is claimed that the inundation of this island is from global warming and rising seas that little or no erosion has taken place. Using Google Earth and their measuring scale the island measures about
0.3 x 0.5 miles = 0.15 sq. mi.
= 0.38847 sq km
= 388470 sq meters
= 4,181,593 sq ft.
= 25742 people/sq km

This would have made it the 4th most densely populated city in the world behind Male,Maldives (48,007), Manila,Philippines (41,014) and Cairo, Egypt (36,618) (Data from Wikipedia).

The population numbers from this island are from 20 years ago of course, compared to current population numbers for the other cities.

Further calculations produce 418 sq. ft. per person or an area about 20x20 per person. I assume this is flat ground and people were not stacked 30 stories on top of one another like some of the other cities. How do 10000 people live in an area of 20x20 each? I don't see it.

My anal fascination with details illustrates a basic problem with our populace. I am a math and geology teacher and delight in investigating little details such as these. Most people, however, are headline readers. They read the headlines of the newspaper or listen to a few seconds of politicaly motivated "news" stories on the TV and consider themselves informed. Few Americans want to analyze information but take it at face value which I think is very dangerous.

Bottom line: Most people don't know what they are talking about when it comes to global warming or science issues in general.

Respectfully, Tim

I am not a mathmatician but Tim's numbers are certainly impressive. I think the actual numbers have been hyped.
Could I get some feedback on my suggestion about the possible effects the construction of the Farraka Barrage on the Ganges might have had on down stream islands such as Lohachara? If it has diverted enough water to dry up some rivers in Bangladesh (which is alleged)wouldn't this have a significant impact on these down stream chars? Evidently the Indian government constructed this dam in order to increase the water flow to clear out silt, and keep the Calcuta port open. The timing of the construction of the dam and the innundation of the island is interesting.
Thanks
Jim

Freda S. of Elkton, VA

I hate to rain on your parade, but you need to actually "read" some of the science that you claim us skeptics are so ignorant of. Try this one on for size:

S. J. Holgate, On the decadal rates of sea level change during the twentieth century, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L01602, doi:10.1029/2006GL028492, 2007

Here's the abstract:

Nine long and nearly continuous sea level records were chosen from around the world to explore rates of change in sea level for 1904�2003. These records were found to capture the variability found in a larger number of stations over the last half century studied previously. Extending the sea level record back over the entire century suggests that the high variability in the rates of sea level change observed over the past 20 years were not particularly unusual. The rate of sea level change was found to be larger in the early part of last century (2.03 � 0.35 mm/yr 1904�1953), in comparison with the latter part (1.45 � 0.34 mm/yr 1954�2003). The highest decadal rate of rise occurred in the decade centred on 1980 (5.31 mm/yr) with the lowest rate of rise occurring in the decade centred on 1964 (−1.49 mm/yr). Over the entire century the mean rate of change was 1.74 � 0.16 mm/yr.

Gosh, a higher rate of sea level change during the early part of the century? How could this be? Can you say natural?

The present sea level rise (minute as it may be) is the result of a natural rebound from the Little Ice Age.

Well, Carl Sagan *was* right... do not try to justify your irrational beliefs by ad-hominem attacks against one of the greatest men to ever walk the face of the Earth, who also happens to be unable to defend himself.

I find it deeply disturbing that non-scientists are acting as experts on this website. Read the world-wide, scientific peer-reviewed literature since 1842 that started with Joseph Fourier.

The scientific conclusions in the peer-reviewed literature on climate change from all over the world are overwhelming.

To Richard Ordway.

1) How do you know these people are not scientists?

2) If a scientist says it, it must be true?

3) Many scientists do not agree with man's contributuion to global warming.

4) This is a blog on the disappearance of an island. What are your thoughts on that?