Death comes ashore

Amitav Ghosh on cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, in the New York Times

THE word “cyclone” was coined in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) in the 1840s by an eccentric Englishman named Henry Piddington. Inspired by the great British meteorologist William Reid, Piddington became one of the earliest storm-chasers, besotted with a phenomenon that he once likened to a “beautiful meteorite.” His elegant coinage was originally intended as a generic name for all revolving weather events, but is now applied mainly to the storms of the Indian Ocean region like Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma with devastating effect last week.

Piddington was among the earliest to recognize that a cyclone wreaks most of its damage not through wind but through water, by means of the devastating wave that is known as a “storm surge.” In 1853, when the British colonial authorities were planning an elaborate new port on the outer edge of Bengal’s mangrove forests, he issued an unambiguous warning: “Everyone and everything must be prepared to see a day when, in the midst of the horrors of a hurricane, they will find a terrific mass of salt water rolling in …” His warning was neglected and Port Canning was built, only to be obliterated by a cyclonic surge in 1867.

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In the Himalayas, a climate-change calamity builds

Glacial melting threatens disastrous floods in Bhutan, one of the world’s most environmentally vigilant nations. Henry Chu reports in Los Angeles Times:

Punakha, Bhutan: High in the Himalayas, above this peaceful valley where farmers till a patchwork of emerald-green fields, an icy lake fed by melting glaciers waits to become a “tsunami from the sky.”

The lake is swollen dangerously past normal levels, thanks to the global warming that is causing the glaciers to retreat at record speed. But no one knows when the tipping point will come and the lake can take no more, bursting its banks and sending torrents of water crashing into the valley below.

Such floods from above have hit Punakha before, most recently in 1994, a calamity that killed about two dozen people and wiped out livelihoods and homes without warning. But scientists say a new flood could unleash more than twice as much water and be far more catastrophic.

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Time runs out for islanders on global warming’s front line

Rising sea levels threaten to flood the Ganges delta, leading to an environmental disaster and a refugee crisis for India and Bangladesh. In The Observer, UK, Douglas McDougall reports from the Sundarbans:

Dependra Das stretches out his arms to show his flaky skin, covered in raw saltwater sores. His fingers submerged in soft black clay for up to six hours a day, he spends his time frantically shoring up a crude sea dyke surrounding his remote island home in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest delta.

Alongside him, across the beach in long lines, the villagers of Ghoramara island, the women dressed in purple, orange and green saris, do the same, trying to hold back the tide.

For the islanders, each day begins and ends the same way. As dusk descends, the people file back to their thatched huts. By morning the dyke will be breached and work will begin again. Here in the vast, low-lying Sundarbans, the largest mangrove wilderness on the planet, Das, 70, is preparing to lose his third home to the sea in as many years; here global warming is a reality, not a prediction.

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In Bangladesh: fears of a climatic Armageddon

While the least developed countries suffer the worst effects of climate change, brought about by the actions of the rich, they have no voice in global warming talks. Now Bangladesh is leading a fightback, reports John Vidal in The Guardian

On September 27 last year, Fakhruddin Ahmed, chief adviser - or head - of the interim government of Bangladesh, stood in the UN general assembly in New York and appealed on behalf of all the most vulnerable countries in the world for help and justice to cope with climate change. “This year we in Bangladesh have witnessed one of the worst floods in recent times . . . there is little we can do to prevent significant damage . . . a one-metre sea level rise will submerge about one-third of Bangladesh, uprooting 25 million to 30 million people. I speak for Bangladesh and many other countries on the threshold of a climatic Armageddon,” he said.

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[pic: women queue at a flood shelter in Dhaka after floods last August. Abir Abdullah]

Kashmir’s Pashmina goats dying of cold

Arun Joshi in Hindustan Times.

Some 150,000 rare Himalayan goats that provide fine wool for Kashmir’s famous Pashmina shawls are facing death because of heavy snow in Changthang, the land of nomads on Indo-Chinese border, this winter.

The goats’ pastures, spread over the mountains of the Changthang area of the Ladakh region, have been covered by unusually deep snow and farmers are fast running out of fodder.

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High-altitude flood warning

Global warming could cause catastrophic emptying of lakes in Nepal and Bhutan, writes Tod Crowell on Asia Sentinel.

The upper Himalaya lakes in Nepal and Bhutan that were formed by retreating glaciers are getting bigger as global warming causes glaciers to recede, with possibly ruinous consequences, a development that Japanese scientists have been monitoring with concern.

It is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing and dangerous one. The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development in Katmandu estimates that 15 glacial lakes have burst in recent years, an average of one every two to five years. The center figures another 20 or so are candidates for Glacial Lake Outburst Flooding, or Glof.

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