As I have stated on this blog before (met by derision from some), when I think about my future and the future of my eventual offspring, terrorism and the rise of fundamentalism has a considerably smaller profile on my radar screen when compared to what I consider larger dangers. Global climate change and natural resource mismanagement being the largest. I only compare the two because often, when deciding where taxpayer dollars go, this is an either/or competition. CNN reports:
Imagine a world without drinking water.It’s a scary thought, but scientists say the 40 percent of humanity living in South Asia and China could well be living with little drinking water within 50 years as global warming melts Himalayan glaciers, the region’s main water source.
The glaciers supply 303.6 million cubic feet every year to Asian rivers, including the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China, the Ganga in India, the Indus in Pakistan, the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh and Burma’s Irrawaddy.
But as global warming increases, the glaciers have been rapidly retreating, with average temperatures in the Himalayas up 1 degree Celsius since the 1970s.
A World Wide Fund report published in March said a quarter of the world’s glaciers could disappear by 2050 and half by 2100.
“If the current scenario continues, there will be very little water left in the Ganga and its tributaries,” Prakash Rao, climate change and energy program coordinator with the fund in India told Reuters.
And keep in mind that the “disappearing” water will find the lowest ground…the ocean. The ocean will then rise of course. That means you will have many more cities in the same geological predicament as New Orleans.
Tulsi Maya, a farmer on the outskirts of Kathmandu, has never heard of global warming or its impact on the rivers in the Himalayan kingdom, but she does know that the flow of water has gone down.“It used to overflow its banks and spill into the fields,” the 85-year-old farmer said standing in her emerald green rice field as she looked at the Bishnumati river, which has ceased to be a reliable source of drinking water and irrigation.
“Maybe God is unkind and sends less water in the river. The flow of water is decreasing every year,” she said standing by her grandson, Milan Dangol, who weeds the crop.
abhi, i haven’t read in this area is years, but my understanding was that quantitatively the greatest impact on sea level rising within the next century would be thermal induced expansion of water in the oceans. is that incorrect?
i think, btw, that the glacier retreat will be a minor phenomena in comparison to what might or might not happen to the asian monsoon (china is affected by monsoonal dynamics as well). my recollection based on paleoclimatology is that cooling tends to decrease the power of the summer monsoonal effect…
what about the indian subcontinent plate pushing further northeast into the plate that china rests on pushing the himalayas and the surrounding land higher and higher up. won’t the temperature at the higher altitude help in the least bit? i’m sure the rate is so miniscule over time though, so not sure.
I am glad Abhi brought this up. Some of you guys might want to read current ideas also on:
About glacier worldwide http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129#more-129
About glacier retreat in tropics and its impact http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=157
In general http://www.realclimate.org/
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.
“what about the indian subcontinent plate pushing further northeast into the plate that china rests on pushing the himalayas and the surrounding land higher and higher up. won’t the temperature at the higher altitude help in the least bit? i’m sure the rate is so miniscule over time though, so not sure.”
Not really. The oceans, earth, and atmosphere is a very complex feed-back system.
PS: I had some email exchange with John Shroder yesterday. We all have hope……..Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
From: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2005/819/1 Science at the Top of the World
John Shroder and Michael Bishop know that one scientific workshop next spring won’t erase a half-century of rancor between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. But the two geoscientists at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, believe turning the Karakoram mountain range and Siachen Glacier into a scientific peace park could help ease tensions between India and Pakistan and advance knowledge of various scientific processes at 8000 meters.
The idea of turning the war-torn region into a peace park has been around for a long time. But the concept began to gel only 2 years ago when Harry Barnes, a former U.S. ambassador to India, contacted Shroder about organizing a workshop. Shroder used his 25-year-long scientific ties to the region to sign up Syed Hamidullah, director of the National Centre of Excellence in Geology at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan, and Syed Iqbal Hasnain, vice chancellor of Calicut University in India.
This month the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) made a $70,000 grant to what Shroder and Bishop have labeled the Karakoram Science Project. Combined with $30,000 from the Office of Naval Research and $25,000 from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation in Washington, D.C., the money will enable some 30 to 40 scientists from the United States, India, Pakistan, China, and elsewhere to meet next May in Lahore, Pakistan, to discuss an array of geological, climactic, and environmental questions. “NSF was particularly interested in including younger scientists,” says Shroder. “It’s the first time they’ve ever given me more money than I’ve asked for.” In June, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proclaimed his support for the idea during an unprecedented visit to Siachen. “The NSF grant is a step in the right direction,” says Hasnain, “in building bridges that might lead to the ultimate demilitarization” of the glacier. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, believes that the workshop, if it leads to a peace park, is “proof that enmities are not forever.”
Bishop and Shroder plan to concentrate on the science and leave the peacemaking to others. But they readily acknowledge that the workshop could be the start of something much bigger. “If we can get people to work together, there’s no telling what could come of it,” says Bishop. “We just want to get the ball rolling.”
I’m far more worried about epidemic disease than global climate change and natural resource mismanagement. Mother Nature has a way of pruning populations which grow too quickly. In particular, I wonder whether the virulence of TB doesn’t undergo changes over time.
One of the ways to curb water use in South Asia would be to make shower heads and bubble spouts mandatory on every faucet (those things that make water come out like foam–standard issue in every faucet in every house in the United States).
Shower heads use a fraction of the water rather that “filling up buckets” do, and also do a better job. Only, if they could get the government to supply water isntead of digging private wells and having tanks on top of your house 🙁
Also, widespread use of washing/dish washing machines will help greatly. Oh and quit washing your car everyday, if you want to become a developed nation quit treating your car like a luxury thing instead of a necessity.
Unless people are willing to change their habits, death rates will only increase.
The world will survive the human race may not…
I’m raising this article from the dead because of recent activities concerning the Brahmaputra,
China first publicly stated its intention of redirecting the river away from south asia into china as early as 1996 (hindunet.org), but recently, they’ve begun undertaking the task: 2006, Oct 22 – TOI, beware of popups. 2006, Oct 23 – ibnlive.com
This is a growing news issue as evidenced by altavista’s news aggregator
If China is successful, it would spell disaster for south asia, on the same level as would abrogating the Indus Water Treaty, except that India/Bangladesh hadn’t set up a similar treaty with China as Pakistan cleverly had done with India.
Kudos for resurrecting it, SST. The topic, it is like the zombies! I’d love to see some rational discussion instead of this kind of drivel about Indus Rivers and the resulting irrelevant diatribes.
Salil,
I do agree with you that discussion around the Indus Water Treaty or anything Indo-Pak related devolves into drivel, but I believe it does so solely because of people’s nature to pontificate on subjects to which quips and haughty retorts can easily be given and to ignore those subjects for which serious thought and strategic planning would be required. When the average Indian after being asked to draw India will draw the shape of PoK to exact measurements while completely forgetting to draw India’s northeast, something has to be said about priorities. Eastern India is in danger of being lost through economic and strategic neglect, and by neglect I mean not only by the central govt. there, but by ordinary Indian voters from whom politicians acquire their agenda. Ditto for NWFP in the minds of Pakistanis.
Fresh water is considered “the next oil“, as desalination and other methods prove far more costly than tapping rivers naturally freshened by glacial runoff. Ancient river-worshippers were rather prescient in their admiration for nature’s bounty, since a powerful river’s fiery can supply hydroelectric power to a continent, and their water can quench the thirst of a billion. The brahmaputra is one such unimaginably powerful river, it is clearly visible from space and is one of the few rivers on this planet to exhibit tidal bore. Ceding such a natural treasure is tantamount to suicide, not the quick, honorable kind, but the slow, emaciating one.
Already, those with the financial and political muscle to muster an investment into freshwater have. It’s high time (high tide? sorry.) for the rest of us to look carefully at the freshwater issue and the critical importance of the Brahmaputra to the welfare of South Asia.
What is special about a river that is visible from space or exhibits tidal bore?
Almost no river can be seen from space by the naked eye, in any visual frame which also captures the entire earth. Surely a telescope or other artificial lens will let you zoom in, but the Brahmaputra is a bestial river that can be observed while the entire planet is in the viewing frame. Launch Google Earth, keep the planet visible, and search for rivers — you’ll be hard pressed to find anything but the Brahmaputra. The Indus and the Mississippi are both practically invisible at those resolutions.
Tidal bore is not as rare, but is still extremely rare for rivers. In Asia, there are only 4, in South America, only 1, and in North America, only 2, in Continental Europe, only 4, and none in Africa.