10-Year Study Shows Sea Rising At 3mm/Year In Bay Of Bengal's Sundarban Islands - ENN

[hatrack]

MOUSHUNI ISLAND, India -- Sheikh Alauddin, like hundreds of other residents living on West Bengal's Moushuni island, has never heard the term "global warming". But he is living with its consequences. "At night we just pray to God, and hope the sea does not drown us," the 60-year-old told Reuters in Poilagheri village on the sparsely-populated island, part of the Sunderbans national park and the world's largest mangrove forest.

When the tide comes in, sea water laps at the top of a mud embankment that towers 6 metres (20 feet) above Alauddin's adjacent house and is all that keeps it from being washed away.

After a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal, oceanographers say the sea is rising at 3.14 millimetres a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of 2 mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh

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A combination of drought and then heavy rainfall this year and increasing soil salinity have made it impossible to grow enough food to survive on traditional agriculture alone. "We now depend on fishing in the high seas and sometimes even eat leaves from different plants to survive," a frail-looking Jameel Mullick said. At least 4 million people live in the islands spread across 9,630 sq. km (3,700 sq. miles) of mangrove swamps.

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http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12408

[phantom power]

1. I don't get it.

How can sea level rise at (pi) millimeters a year in one locale, while rising more slowly elsewhere? It seems to me that this must be a transient artifact of some other effect(s).

[hatrack]

2. The short and simple version (which is what it has to be for me to understand) is . . .

. . . sea level isn't all that level. There's an interesting story over on AFP's Terra Daily about a cold current gyre near Australia that's caused a small regional drop in sea levels, given that the volume of water in that area has shrunk over the last few years.

Any DU oceanographers?