species of primates, the “golden langurs”
to 2009. The rate of sea-level rise was close
are found in this island. These langurs
to
live in groups and are friendly to the
cm/decade)
tourists who come here. During 1 – 2
accelerating
months
flood,
when
the
river
Brahmaputra is in spate, the island
remains cut-off from the world
1.7
(equivalent
during
to
the
about
to
1.7
20th
century,
3.2
mm/year
(equivalent to 3.2 cm/decade) on average
since the beginning of the 1990s.
It
has
been
noted
that
the
largest
contribu tions of sea level rise have come
from
SPECIAL FEATURES
mm/year
thermal
expansion,
melting
of
mountain glaciers, and ice caps melting,
Climate Change and Water
followed by the ice sheets melting. Some of
III
the study infers that the human influence on
With anthropogenic climate warming and
large scale heat absorption by ocean, sea
levels are rising across the globe. This rise
in sea levels is caused by thermal expansion
of the oceans and by the addition of water to
the oceans as a result of the melting and
discharge of ice from mountain glaciers and
ice caps and from the much larger
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. A
significant number of the world population
is settled along coastlines, many large
densely populated cities with extensive
infrastructure are there, which may be
affected badly. Sea-level rise potentially one
of the most severe long-term impacts of
climate change.
the hydrological cycle through dam building
(negative contribution as water is retained
on land) and groundwater mining (positive
contribution because of a transfer from land
to ocean) contributed negatively, to sea-level
change over this period. The acceleration of
sea-level rise over the last two decades is
mostly explained by an increasing land-ice
melting over 1972–2008 period in particular,
the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic
ice sheets.
The major influencing factor of water
hydrography in South Asia depends apart
from
the
monsoon,
the
dominant
geographical feature, the Hindu Kush and
Himalayan mountain complex, which block
Updated estimates and reconstructions of
sea-level rise by different scientists, based
on tidal measures and more recently,
satellite observations, indicate more than 20
the
northerly
push
of
the
monsoon,
confining its precipitation effects to the
South Asian subcontinent. This complex is
also providing, with their snow and glacial
cm sea-level rise, since preindustrial times
6
Integrated River Basin Management Society