Rising sea level poses risk to Qatar, neighbours
Web posted at: 11/28/2009 1:25:6
Source ::: The Peninsula . / BY SATISH KANADY
DOHA: Sea Level Rise (SLR) is posing big risk to Qatar. Like most other Arab countries, the bulk of Qatar’s economic activity, agriculture and population centres are in the coastal zone, making the country highly vulnerable to a possible rise in the SLR.
A remote sensing study ‘On the impacts of Global warming on the Arab region,’ released by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) revealed that a sea level rise of mere 1 meter would directly impact 41,500 km² of the Arab coastal lands. Qatar has been enlisted in the potential threat-facing countries. Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria are the other countries included in the ‘endangered’ list.
The risk can be in the form of both coastal region inundation and increasing salinity of soil and available fresh water resources such as aquifers. The report revealed that the SLR of 1 metre would directly affect 3.2% of the population in these countries, compared to a global percentage of about 1.28%.
The study that used remote sensing techniques to depict the consequences on the Arab world of various climate change impact scenarios said Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing the region today.
The report, second of a series of annual reports produced by the AFED, says that the past century had witnessed a 17 cm rise in the sea level at a mean rate of 1.75 mm per year. A report published by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 predicted seal-level rise of up to 59 cm by 2100.
Taking into account the full “likely” range of predicted increase in temperature, the SLR could even be amplified to up to 1.4 m by the year 2100. Other researches have predicted between 5-6 m SLR in the event of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse.
“The coastal zone of the Arab world is no exception to the threat of SLR. Similar to many parts of the world, capital cities and major towns of Arab countries lie along the coast or on estuaries. Their expansions are extremely rapid and, therefore, these metropolises are at great risk of SLR,” the report said.
The potential impacts of SLR, however, are not uniformly distributed across the Arab region. Egypt will be by far the most impacted in the Arab world.
The current analysis indicates that Bahrain and Qatar would experience a significant reduction of about 13.4% and 6.9%, respectively, of their land as a result of the 5 m SLR scenario.
Link: http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&month=November2009&file=Local_News200911281256.xml
Blog Archive
-
▼
2009
(1326)
-
▼
November
(127)
- Methane, the ticking time bomb, will go off!
- Scientific American (December 2009), "Methane -- A...
- James Hansen: Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit -- Le...
- Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate: The CRU hack -- context
- Combined Global Land and Marine Surface Temperatur...
- Peter Laut, J. Atmos. Solar-Terr. Phys., 2003, Sol...
- Spencer Weart, science historian, expresses his co...
- Australian climate row highlights Copenhagen rifts
- Climate change: How global warming is having an im...
- Arctic warming spike predicted for February 2010
- Rising sea level poses risk to Qatar, neighbours
- NOAA: 2009 Arctic Report Card, updated -- section ...
- Nordell & Gervet, Intl. J. Global Warming,Trapping...
- H. Damon Matthews et al., Nature 459 (2009), The p...
- Damon Matthews, Nature (June 2009), Carbon emissio...
- E. D. Schulze et al., Nature Geoscience (Nov. 2009...
- Detlef Schulze et al., Nature Geoscience, Intensiv...
- Timothy J. Garrett, Climatic Change (Nov. 2009), A...
- "Is global warming unstoppable? "based on paper by...
- A. Shiklomanov: A general increase of river disch...
- James Hansen: Storms of My Grandchildren
- Global warming challenging Canada's northern infra...
- Jeffrey Park, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36 (2009), A re...
- Jeffrey Park: Oceans absorbing carbon dioxide mor...
- The Manufactured Doubt industry and the hacked ema...
- CNN: Sea level rise could cost port cities $28 tr...
- Michael Mann Responds to CRU Hack
- "Blessed Unrest" by Paul Hawken: book review by La...
- George Monbiot: Global warming rigged? Here's the...
- The Guardian: Climate scientist Phil Jones at cent...
- BBC: Rising sea levels: A tale of two cities -- R...
- Climatic Research Unit update - November 24, 2009,...
- Plans for Copenhagen by Leon Simons, Dutch Country...
- Research fraud by Douglass, Christy, Pearsona & Si...
- A little dark humor to warm our beleaguered souls
- Eli Rabett: Ed Darrell found something interestin...
- 2009 predicted to be in the top 5 warmest years on...
- The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report
- Arctic expedition to initiate methane hydrate expl...
- China's emissions from coal increase despite econo...
- Al Gore to techies: Shake off the lethargy
- The Global Warming Denial Machine
- Duke Energy's Jim Rogers: Why nuclear power will ...
- Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States...
- Lester R. Brown: A hotter planet means less on ou...
- Seth Borenstein: Climate change speeds up since 1...
- A. R. Desai et al., Nature Geosci., Stronger winds...
- Richard Black of the BBC: East Antarctic ice sheet...
- J. L. Chen, C. R. Wilson, D. Blankenship & B. D. T...
- Yamamoto-Kawai, McLaughlin, Carmack, Science 326, ...
- New radar technique (REFRACTT) locates storm-fueli...
- Climate sceptic James Delingpole's cheap shot at N...
- Wettest November in Wales since records began in 1...
- Current sea-surface-temperature anomalies -- bizar...
- How Andrew Revkin of the New York Times sold out t...
- Andy Revkin sells out to the fossil fuel interests...
- Antarctic temperature spike surprises climate rese...
- Real Climate: The CRU hack
- Dozen lesser-known chemicals (chlorofluorocarbons ...
- MIRAS instrument on ESA's SMOS satellite up and ru...
- M. Yamamoto-Kawai et al., Science 326, Aragonite u...
- Der Spiegel bought off by fossil fuel interests!!!
- U.S. group sees worsening coastal flooding threat ...
- National Geographic photographer in Antarctica
- S. Khatiwala, F. Primeau, T. Hall, Nature 462, Rec...
- Real Climate: A Treeline Story by Raypierre
- World on course for catastrophic 6 °C rise, reveal...
- Clouds Can Reveal Shape of Continents
- Oceans Said to Absorb Fewer Emissions
- MSU/AMSU Channel TLT Brightness Temperature Anomal...
- MSU/AMSU Channel TLT Brightness Temperature Anomal...
- BBC's Richard Black: Greenland ice loss 'accelera...
- Laurie Williams & Allan Zabel: Cap-and-trade mirage
- EPA ORDERS EMPLOYEES TO REMOVE YOUTUBE CLIMATE VIDEO
- Joseph Romm: Record high temperatures far outpace...
- Nitrate concentrations in Greenland ice have almos...
- A. Luque & U. Ebert, Nature Geosci., Emergence of ...
- Lightning storms at mid-latitudes and in the subtr...
- NewScientist: Tuna in peril as catches reach trip...
- A. Montenegro et al., Glob. Planet. Change, 2009, ...
- NewScientist: Trees in far north provide biggest ...
- NewScientist: Mini ice age took hold of Europe in...
- Richard A. Kerr, Science, 326, Both of the World's...
- Jeffery P. Severinghaus, Science 326, Atmospheric ...
- Richard A. Kerr, Science, 326, Amid worrisome sign...
- Michiel van den Broeke et al., Science 326, Partit...
- Wet phases in the Sahara/Sahel region and human mi...
- H. Cheng, R. L. Edwards, W. S. Broeker, G. H. Dent...
- Greenland's mass loss increases to 0.75 mm per yea...
- Antarctic iceberg on walkabout toward Australia
- Peak Oil Already Here: Key oil numbers were disto...
- Rajendra Pachauri: India 'arrogant' to deny globa...
- Greenland ice and Himalayan glaciers: What’s going...
- Greenland's ice sheet melting faster than ever
- Anders Levermann: Global warming increases the ri...
- J. Nye et al., Changing spatial distribution of fi...
- Federal study shows fish species moving toward mor...
- How stable is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning ...
- J. Oster, I. P. Montañe, W. D. Sharp & K. M. Coope...
- Jessica Oster et al., Cave stalagmite ring study l...
-
▼
November
(127)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment