Global warming threatens Goa's coastline NT Staff Reporter
Panaji, April 16 Goa's coast is under major threat from rising waters due to global warming. With this Goa's main USP, its pristine beaches, and subsequently its tourism industry, which attract millions of tourists will literally sink into oblivion and with it the livelihoods of millions of Goans.
Says a scientist from the NIO, Dr Ramesh Kumar, "this is a very dangerous situation and the water levels will keep on rising." Goa is only 5 feet above sea level.
However, Goa is in exalted company. Climate change could also destroy Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which is top tourist attraction of that country.
The Centre for Future Studies in September listed Goa and the Great Barrier Reef, as one of the top ten tourist attractions to be taken off the map by 2020.
A Greenpeace study on Goa also say that Goa's beaches along with parts of the capital, Fort Aguada and Mapusa are under threat.
Dr Kumar, whose area of expertise is the monsoon, also says that along with the rising waters, "the increased convection over eastern Indian Ocean leads long breaks in monsoons in India due to global warning."
Explaining, this phenomenon, Dr Kumar says that normally the 61 per cent of the monsoon is during the months of July and August, with the maximum rain in July.
Earlier, the breaks between showers used to be more in August, but over a period of time the breaks have started getting longer and started shifting to the month of July.
Another phenomenon that was observed last year was the intense unseasonal rainfall for the first time in 130 years. Dr Kumar is not willing to say that this is due to global warming but just underlines the fact that this has not happened for 130 years.
The metrological officer, Mr K V Singh, feels that the unseasonal rainfall that lashed the state some time back was due temperature drop, saying "Panaji received about 44.3 centimetres of rainfall last month," he said.
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation.
The average global air temperature near the surface increased by 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the hundred years ending in 2005.
The inter-governmental panel on climate change says, "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
This has been endorsed by at least thirty scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialised countries. Some scientists have disagreed with some findings of the IPCC, but the overwhelming majority working on climate change agrees with the IPCC's main conclusions.
Climate model projections summary of the IPCC says that average global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C during the 21st century. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming and sea level rise will continue for more than a thousand years even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized.
Increasing global temperature will cause sea level to rise, and is expected to increase the intensity of extreme weather events and to change the amount and pattern of precipitation. Other effects of global warming include changes in agricultural yields, trade routes, glacier retreat, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.
Dr Krishna said that the gases like carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrogen oxide and CFC's also equally contribute to global warming.
"These gasses work like a blanket, which keeps heat in or does not allow heat to enter," he argues. He also says that the Artic Sea has almost vanished from 1988 to 2005 and added that major climatic change takes place in the Arctic region. "Contaminated winds from industries and other sources provide a fast route to the Arctic region leading to melting of the ice caps," he argues.
Based on estimates by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2005 was the warmest year since reliable, widespread instrumental measurements became available in the late 1800s, exceeding the previous record set in 1998 by a few hundredths of a degree.
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