A preview of things to come – inhabited island inundated by rising sea levels

First off, I haven’t blogged in about a week due to my annual holiday visit to my parents in North Carolina, and again I have to say, that you never really appreciate your high-speed internet until you’re stuck at a place with dial-up, excruciately slow dial-up at that. So, now that we are back in Morgantown, I can get back to work.

While catching up with all my blog and news sites, I came across a reference to this article in the Independent, about the island of Lohachara, just off the coast of India in the Bay of Bengal. It was home to about 10,000 people, who have been evacuated to another island after rising sea levels completely submerged the island. Two-thirds of the neighboring Ghoramara Island has also disappeared under the sea. According to the article, Lohachara Island now has the dubious distinction of being the first inhabited land area to be submerged as a result of global warming: “Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth.”

In the coming years, it is expected that a number of other inhabited islands will be submerged, as well as many low-lying coastal areas. It is a sobering thought, especially as we all too rapidly approach the point where some experts say the impacts of accelerated global warming will be irreversible.

Via Tech_Space