The Braided Brahmaputra

[multiweb (Marc)]

Pretty cool photo covering from the highest mountains right down to sea level.
https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/image...020314_lrg.jpg

Article here.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...a?src=eoa-iotd

[gary]

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the post!

I've gone by riverboat along stretches of it. Down at Dhaka in Bangladesh
it's known as the Meghna River.

The riverboats there sink with monotonous regularity :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._in_Bangladesh

It's deceptive when you look at the delta region on a map or even on
a satellite image in that you see all this area you perceive as land.
When you fly over it at lower altitudes, it strikes you that it is all
water with just tiny patches of land raising a few feet - and at
times only inches - above the water level.

So it is a prime target for rising sea levels due to climate change and
the amount of inundation during the monsoon will only get worse.

There are a lot of people there. I was nearly crushed to death in a crowd
there once. Where they will have to relocate will be one of this
centuries great challenges.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by gary

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the post!

I've gone by riverboat along stretches of it. Down at Dhaka in Bangladesh
it's known as the Meghna River.

The riverboats there sink with monotonous regularity :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._in_Bangladesh

It's deceptive when you look at the delta region on a map or even on
a satellite image in that you see all this area you perceive as land.
When you fly over it at lower altitudes, it strikes you that it is all
water with just tiny patches of land raising a few feet - and at
times only inches - above the water level.

So it is a prime target for rising sea levels due to climate change and
the amount of inundation during the monsoon will only get worse.

There are a lot of people there. I was nearly crushed to death in a crowd
there once. Where they will have to relocate will be one of this
centuries great challenges.

Thanks for the photo and info Gary. I read somewhere that Bangladesh, besides being the first country significantly hit by sea level rise will be inhabitable in parts very quickly. Some even say within the decade. Because of a combination of heat and air saturation with water. There are times of the day when an exposure of a couple of hours only will be lethal as the human body cannot regulate temperature in hot and high humidity environment. The next few years we're going to see a massive shift in populations (climate refugees) moving to other countries in more temperate areas.

[gary]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Thanks for the photo and info Gary. I read somewhere that Bangladesh, besides being the first country significantly hit by sea level rise will be inhabitable in parts very quickly. Some even say within the decade. Because of a combination of heat and air saturation with water. There are times of the day when an exposure of a couple of hours only will be lethal as the human body cannot regulate temperature in hot and high humidity environment. The next few years we're going to see a massive shift in populations (climate refugees) moving to other countries in more temperate areas.

Hi Marc,

Then if you add into the mix refugees such as the over 1 million
Rohingya who are down in Cox's Bazar, which is on the Bangladesh
coast just below the right hand extent of the image, that will also
get caught up in the climate change impacts, it's one monumental
disaster that is unfolding.

Whenever I hear "Bangladesh" I instantly think "water".

[multiweb (Marc)]

Just saw this article today dated from December 2018.

China geo engineering to control and redirect water flow over the tibetan plateau to mainland rivers and affect rain precipitation over the region potentially affecting all other downstream asian countries.

Sounds like science fiction but apparently legit and attracting a lot of concerns from the scientific community.

It's in French but you can easily translate the page with Google.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Looks like more uncertainty for this area vis a vis water management. China might be building a mega dam upstream in an earthquake prone area at that. Likely another friction point with an already tense geopolitical situation with India. India views this as an aggressive move and possibly a weapon to flood low level land downstream at will.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-...utra/100146344

[gary]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Looks like more uncertainty for this area vis a vis water management. China might be building a mega dam upstream in an earthquake prone area at that. Likely another friction point with an already tense geopolitical situation with India. India views this as an aggressive move and possibly a weapon to flood low level land downstream at will.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-...utra/100146344

Hi Marc,

I saw the ABC link this morning. As a side, who ever created the graphics
for that story did a great job. But the content of the story is a major
concern for the millions downstream.

A similar story in the Mekong where it seems those downstream of the
dam be damned :-
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pa...southeast-asia

[Sunfish (Ray)]

Thanks Marc and Gary. Great work by the ABC et al . Frightening for downstream neighbours.

[multiweb (Marc)]

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...ortheast-india

[multiweb (Marc)]

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...-in-bangladesh

[gary]

Originally Posted by multiweb

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...-in-bangladesh

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the new links.

Meanwhile we have devastating floods in Pakistan. A third of the country
flooded, an estimated 33 million affected, 500,000 houses destroyed or
damaged, 700,000 head of livestock swept away and damage to 3.6 million
acres of crops.

Whilst you fly into Karachi, the first thing that strikes you is that it
is vast desert.

As you head north out of the city, it is dry, it is dusty, you see camels.

The Indus forms a spine down the length of the country where along
its banks agriculture takes place. At the source of the Indus, up in the
Karakorams, home of K2 amongst five of the world's fourteen 8000m+ peaks,
it is a treeless, crumbling landscape where the UV is relentless and
you thirst for shade. There is video of vehicles being swept off the roads
there into deep chasms. Further to the west in the beautiful Swat valley,
there is vision of a new hotel by the side of the river falling into itself
like a house of cards.

So just when you think Bangladesh is a bit of a worry because of its
location, Pakistan, mostly desert, is flooded as well.

Last year I was comparing a snaphot of myself standing on a glacier
in Pakistan in 1988. I was shocked to see a photo online taken
only recently at the same spot and the glacier had retreated kilometres back.

Before/after satellite imagery of Pakistan here :-
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62728678

Some old snapshots below :-

[multiweb (Marc)]

Pretty dramatic before/after pics. I guess where ever you are downstream or south slope of the himalayas it acts as a massive funnel for all that monsoon rain. It has nowhere else to go.
There's a good video here.

[gary]

Originally Posted by HADIA A. SHEERAZ, Columbia Climate School, September 12 2022

One-third of Pakistan is underwater.

Satellite images from NASA and the European Space Agency show the Indus River spilling beyond its banks, encroaching into nearby agricultural fields, and merging with Hamal Lake (30 miles away) to form one massive lake more than six miles wide and 60 miles long.

How did Pakistan go from a record-breaking heatwave to being submerged in floodwater within a few weeks?

During the sizzling heatwave through May, millions of Pakistanis looked to the skies, praying for the relief of rains.

From June through August, summer monsoon rains dumped 190 percent more rainfall than normal, with the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan receiving over 410 percent and 466 percent above average, respectively. That’s nearly six times more than the 30-year average rainfall for that region.

At one point it rained for 72 hours nonstop.

These “monsoons on steroids,” or “monster monsoons,” as they’ve been dubbed, were fed extraordinarily high levels of moisture during the heatwaves that had scorched Pakistan just weeks before. Meteorologists had predicted that the record-shattering temperatures (exceeding 50°C or 122°F in some cities in Sindh) could cause “above average” levels of rain during Pakistan’s annual monsoon season.

Another factor in the flooding is that Pakistan is home to over 7,000 glaciers — the most glacial ice outside the polar regions. The glacial melt in April-May and the hottest summer on record, coupled with the unexpected arrival of a large-scale depression system from the Arabian Sea, set the stage for historic runoffs that could not be contained by the mighty Indus River, nor by the massive network of dams and reservoirs across its tributaries.

Report, imagery here :-
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/20...lyptic-crisis/

[multiweb (Marc)]

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...is-overflowing

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...ds-in-pakistan