New Moore Island, in the Sunderbans
More like No Moore Island HAW HAW HAW
Thanks, Sarkus. I mean, I knew some of that, but what is confusing me is that you would think a sandbar would not be considered an island, and certainly not one that would be contested by political powers. Are the politics in SE Asia that petty?
Somewhat related, according to this article, (linked from Bradford Plumer’s blog) expected sea level rise from global warming would not be even close to uniform. One reason is that the gravitational effects of the big ice sheets is very significant:
A joint paper, due out in a few months, will look into the gravitationally driven sea-level changes a melting Greenland could trigger. “The signal is so large,” says Stouffer, “that if you own beachfront property in Iceland, and all of the ice on Greenland melts and adds seven meters to average sea level, you end up with more beach. But in Hawaii, you get your seven meters of sea-level rise plus an extra two or three on top of that. It’s phenomenal to me that it matters that much.”
That’s mind-blowing.
It was a Polar Bear.
A “temporary” island can be a lot more then a sandbar. It could have grass, plants, and trees, for example. It could be large enough to support a population or even farmers for that matter. In this particular case, it was probably just about bragging rights, though. After all, the island didn’t even exist until 1974 according to the wikipedia article, so it was a perfect things for India and Bangladesh to argue about.
This far without a Jingo reference?
No worries - this is P&R, so emotional jabs are to be expected and not to be taken personally. I was a volunteer Little League umpire for years, so I learned to not let personal attacks from people I don’t know bother me. ;)
tiny pieces of land can offer tactical advantages (see: wake island) but more importantly can give territorial control over surrounding seas (see: Falklands oil discovery)
From the map and the discussion around the island, it looks like the countries have agreed to divide the waters along the route the river would take if it could be extended along it’s projectory at the mouth there. Am I interpreting that right? So the ‘island’ sat in the middle of that line.
How long did it take to sink? ARE the sea levels in the bay higher now than they were 10 years ago? Shouldn’t that be easy to measure?
The original boundary was defined as the mouth of the river, but when the island formed in 1974 there was a dispute as to which side the “main” current of the outflowing river was going. Each side claimed to have proof that favored themselves. 35 years later the island has disappeared, though some articles have implied that it was flooded over on a regular basis over the years. For example, if you look at Google Earth for that location, it’s clearly underwater as of the date of the image (which is not recent).
From what I’ve read, the levels of the bay are rising, and in general Bangladesh (which consists of a lot of low lying land to begin with) is viewed as one of the countries most at risk for sea level rises.