Victims of the Global Warming

The effects of the global warming are taking its toll in Cherapunji in the North-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya and Sunderbans (West Bengal), the largest mangrove forest and largest home of the Royal Bengal tigers in the world. Both places are victims of rapid changes in the climate. While Cherapunji, which has earned the distinction of being known as the wettest place in the world, is reeling under severe water crisis. The islands of Sunderbans are vanishing slowly in to the Bay of Bengal.
Sinking Sunderbans
If the Latest report of inter-governmental panel on climate change(IPCC) is to be believed, Sunderbans is on the verge of sinking in to The Bay of Bengal. The Researchers at the School of Oceanographic studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata has been studying the phenomenon since last 6 years. According to the studies the sea –level is rising at the rate of 3.14 mm annually. And if the government does not initiate concrete steps, in another 15 years the sea will lay claim to a dozen islands in the Sunderbans, six of which are populated, rendering about 70,000 people homeless. The Sunderbans is a sprawling archipelago of several hundred islands stretching nearly 300 km between West Bengal and Bangladesh. It is part of the world’s largest delta (80,000 sq km) formed from sediments deposited by three great rivers-the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna-as they empty into the Bay of Bengal.The minister of Sunderbans affairs in West Bengal Government Mr. Kanti Ganguly says that the government is aware of the situation and we are planning to initiate concrete steps to minimize the danger due to increasing human population.
Wet Desert
Cherapunji, the wettest spot on the earth is fast heading towards becoming a desert. More popularly known as Sohra, the capital of the rain world, Cherapunji enjoys an annual average rainfall of 10,871 millimeters and is situated around 1300 meters above sea-level. Around 60 kilometers away from Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya in the north eastern part of India, In 1820, the British settled in Cherapunji and made it the capital of the Northeast region. Cherapunji entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the wettest place in the world. But now one can see women and children trekking long distances for a bucket of water.
At the root of the problem is nothing but severe deforestation and changes in the climate world over causing environmental imbalance. moving slowly but steadily to becoming a ‘wet desert’.
IPCC REPORT
Massive population displacement across Asia from climate events is a potentially huge problem that needs to be made immediate and concrete enough for governments and corporations to implement changes to help reduce or prevent it. The evidence keeps mounting. Climate change is inevitable and sea levels are going to rise. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its paper “Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” in april,2007.
The IPCC report suggests that “many millions more people are projected to be flooded every year due to sea-level rise by the 2080s”. The report points out that large coastal conurbations are the most worrying areas of potential/probable damage, and that “the numbers affected will be largest in the mega-deltas of Asia and Africa, while small islands are especially vulnerable”. The report estimates that sea levels are more likely to rise between 22 and 34 centimeters between 1990 and the 2080s.