Financial Times

Irresponsible statements on sea level rise
By Dulip Jayawardena
Responsible decision and policy makers of the government who follow the tsunami are now warning about the immediate dangers of the rising sea levels along the coastal zone of Sri Lanka mainly attributed to global warming so as to justify the buffer zone.

There is a clear distinction between sea level rise due to a tsunami and due to global warming. In the case of a tsunami, sea waves could be devastating due to the run up on the coastline. Sea level rise due to global warming is a complicated phenomenon that continues over thousands of years.

More than sea level rise, the present activities related to sand mining along our beaches and sand dunes in Kalpitiya and Jaffna and coral mining along the south west coast will directly contribute to intrusion of the sea on land within a few years thus destroying the coastal habitat.

The attention of scientists was drawn to the effect of global warming on the sea level rise and its consequences especially on Small Island Developing States in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Caribbean.

In the Indian Ocean, Maldives and Seychelles which are groups of atolls as well as Mauritius, a sunken volcanic cone, the mean sea levels are only a few meters, and a rise will heavily impact on the coastal zones and lead to serious socio economic problems.

However in Sri Lanka such sea level rise has not been studied in detail and the assumption that it will affect the coast has no scientific basis at all and should be discarded as politically motivated.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that one of the consequences of Global Warming will be rising sea levels due to thermal expansion of the ocean water mass and the melting of polar glaciers. They claim that the oceans already rose 18 cm (7 inches) in the 20th century. They further predict that the oceans will rise approximately 50 cm (19.5 inches) in the 21st century.

These results are based on historical tide gauge data, which have serious flaws with the subsidence of ground levels as well as rising of the ground. Moreover the figures relate to models focused on the North Atlantic Basin and not on real recorded data. There is a lack of evidence from the other areas such as the Indian Ocean on sea level rise in the 20th century. In Sri Lanka there are no tide gauges that have recorded historical data on sea level rise. The closest tide gauge in Vishakhapatanam in South India have good quality records from 1937 and show there is no overall change of the sea level over a 57 year period discounting the IPCC s claim of a sea level rise of 10 cm over the same period.

The most reliable information on the Indian Ocean sea level changes are from the Australian National Tidal Facility (NTF) which has 27 stations over a period ranging from 23 to 82 years. Out of this, 11 stations record a fall of sea level while the mean sea level rise for all stations combined is .3 mm per year as compared with IPCC s claimed rate of 1.8 mm per year of sea level rise.

It should be remembered that no matter what is said about sea level, it depends entirely on global climate response to greenhouse gases - whether the Planet warms significantly or not. Since sea level rise is attributed to atmospheric warming, if there is no warming there is no sea level rise. To this end atmospheric temperature recorded by satellites since 1979 reveals no significant warmings despite certain models by some scientists.

Conclusion
Global warming and sea level rise are natural phenomena and not related to the tsunami. In Sri Lanka there are no historical records of sea level rise and it will be unscientific and baseless to make statements that sea level rise will impact our coastline to justify in a dubious manner the 100-meter buffer zone. It is a fallacy to make statements that sea level rise will affect the coastal communities without any scientific data.

It is strongly urged that appropriate government institutions should take immediate action to install a requisite number of tide gauge stations in areas they suspect that there has been sea level rise and obtain real time data to convince the communities to relocate themselves as the sea will impact on their property and they should vacate from the proposed buffer zones

Off-track statements
I should also reiterate that it is not a rise in the sea level that has caused the impact on land but human activities such as coral mining as seen at the Akurala swamp not far from the train disaster due to the tsunami, and extensive sand mining being carried out recently in Kalpitiya and the Jaffna Peninsula. Such activities are exacerbated due to politicians and their lackeys as well as officials who are unable to discharge their duties according to the law.

I would like to finally reiterate that responsible politicians and officials should not make ridiculous and irresponsible statements such as immediate sea level rise in order to justify their dogmatic concept of the 100 metre and 200 metre no build or buffer zone!!!!

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