Five Places That Could Soon Disappear Due to Global Warming

Global warming has been hotly debated over the last decade or two. We had two years of bad hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 in the US because of higher ocean temperatures, then the next few hurricane seasons were fairly mild. It's been posited that maybe Global Climate Change is a better way to look at the issue. Regardless of what approach you take, it was recently announced by the World Meteorological Organization that the year 2009 ended the hottest decade since 1850.

If temperatures continue to rise, then several low-lying places stand to fare badly.

1. The Maldives

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Male, the capital of the Maldives, is the second most densely-populated island in the world.

The Maldives is the lowest country on earth, with an average height of 4 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.  The Maldives is made up of atolls spread over 90,000 square kilometers in the Indian Ocean.  Any rise in sea level threatens the country directly.  It also could increase beach erosion, impacting the tourism industry, which is the top income producer in the country. President Nasheed recently brought attention to rising sea levels by holding a cabinet meeting underwater.  He has pledged the Maldives to be the first carbon-neutral country by 2020 by switching all energy production away from fossil fuels to renewable energy in 10 years.

2. Tuvalu

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Another low-lying country that will be affected by a rise in sea level is Tuvalu.  Tuvalu is composed of islands and atolls in the South Pacific between Hawaii and Australia. Its land mass is only 4.5 meters above sea level. In a study done by the University of Hawaii on Tuvalu, a gauge installed in 1978 has shown that the sea level there has risen 1.2 mm per year for over 20 years.  In addition to flooding, rising sea levels increase salinity in ground water, making the soil unable to support agriculture. Unlike the Maldives, which are too shallow for any crops to grow, Tuvalu's coconut and taro crops would be affected by increasing salt in the soil. New Zealand has agreed to a plan to accept a number of Tuvalu residents each year as 'climate refugees' as the situation worsens.

3. Kiribati

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Kiribati is another low-lying chain of atolls in the South Pacific near Tuvalu.  Most of the land in the country is less than two meters above sea level.  Reportedly, two smalls islets disappeared under water in 1999.  The islet of Tepuka Savilivili no longer has any coconut trees due to increasing salination. Kiribati is one of the world's poorest countries due to loss of phosphate mining on its main island after the mineral was mined out. An increase in salination due to rising sea levels would threaten all agriculture within this century.

4. Venice, Italy

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One of the gems of Europe, Venice is used to living in close proximity with water. It is laced with canals since it is basically built on islands and on pilings over a lagoon. In addition to the threat that rising sea levels present to a city built at such a low level, Venice is sinking into the mud of the lagoon by about 4 inches per year. St. Mark's Square, one of the lowest points in the city, flooded about 10 times per year in 1900. One hundred years later, it floods about 60 times per year. Venice's sinking was slowed when restrictions were put on drawing water out of underground aquifers, yet rising seawater continues to creep up stairwells and into the ground floors of buildings. The Italian Government is studying measures such as pumping water into the clay seabed to raise the city.  There is also a plan to build inflatable gates to block incoming high tides.  In any case, the city of Venice will continue to be at risk and on the front lines of the fight against rising sea levels.

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Venice, Italy with its bridge to the mainland.

5. Bangladesh

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Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is home to 13 million people.

Bangladesh is mainly wetlands and lowland river deltas that are barely above sea level. It has a close relationship with water, and actually gained its independence from Pakistan when the people revolted over poor government response to a deadly monsoon in 1970. It faces a water threat from two angles. The rising sea level in the Bay of Bengal is slowly but steadily reclaiming delta land. The country's largest island, Bhola, has lost half of its land to erosion since 1960, displacing 500,000 people.  From the other direction, melting Himalayan glaciers are raising river levels and increasing erosion.  The country has 230 rivers running through it, and they are becoming wider and more violent every year as more water rushes down from the Himalayas. Salination is creeping northward and making monsoonal rice planting areas infertile, decreasing food production in one of the world's poorest and most crowded countries. In addition, in a country used to flooding, people report that the monsoons are becoming worse because of the warm seawater. People in some areas of the delta have taken to living on boats to deal with the rising water levels.  A new strain of flood-resistant rice is also going through testing.

I hope this article helps you get a better idea of people and areas for whom global climate change is more than just a concept.

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