The Weather Notebook: GCC#10-Bangladesh

GCC#10-Bangladesh
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Relative humidity, or RH, is a measure of the water in the air. At one hundred percent humidity the air is completely saturated and fog forms. But, at a lower RH this moisture is invisible.

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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook's weekly segment on global climate change. A report by the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change warns that by the end of this century, a continued rise in the global temperature could raise the sea level by as much as 1 meter--or 3.1 feet. For countries like Bangladesh, where a large percentage of residents live in coastal areas, such a shift could be devastating. Manisha Aryal reports.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with over 131 million people living on land that is smaller than the state of Iowa. Most residents live in the coastal areas. Atiq Rahaman, chair of Climate Action Network, South Asia.

AR: With one meter in rise, about 20 percent of the coastal radius, 70 percent of the countries population will be displaced and inundated. Now, that is serious impact.

That means nearly fifty cities underwater and millions of residents displaced. Resettling so many people would be difficult. Building dykes, as in the Netherlands, could be one mitigation method. But, Rahaman says prohibitive costs and extreme weather in Bangladesh could make such a plan impossible.

AR: If there is two degrees temperature rise then the glaciers will melt faster and faster. More water will come in and we will not be able to get out because the level of the sea has already risen and the gradient is very, very low. So, it will spread sideways which means there will be inundation across Bangladesh. The storm surges increase and inundate more.

And render the dykes ineffective. Rahaman says Bangladesh will only remain above water if the world's producers commit to reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For The Weather Notebook, I'm Manisha Aryal in Bangladesh.

The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington observatory. The series on global climate change is supported by the New England Science Center Collaborate and Roy A. Hunt Foundation.