Indian Ocean Sea Levels On The Rise

Newly detected rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean, including the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, appear to be at least partly a result of human-induced increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases, says a study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The study, which combined sea surface measurements going back to the 1960s and satellite observations, indicates anthropogenic climate warming likely is amplifying regional sea rise changes in parts of the Indian Ocean, threatening inhabitants of some coastal areas and islands, said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Weiqing Han, lead study author. The sea level rise -- which may aggravate monsoon flooding in Bangladesh and India -- could have far-reaching impacts on both future regional and global climate.

The key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, an enormous, bathtub-shaped area of the tropical oceans stretching from the east coast of Africa west to the International Date Line in the Pacific. The warm pool has heated by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, primarily caused by human-generated increases of greenhouse gases, said Han.

"Our results from this study imply that if future anthropogenic warming effects in the Indo-Pacific warm pool dominate natural variability, mid-ocean islands such as the Mascarenhas Archipelago, coasts of Indonesia, Sumatra and the north Indian Ocean may experience significantly more sea level rise than the global average," said Han of CU-Boulder's atmospheric and oceanic sciences department.

A paper on the subject was published in this week's issue of Nature Geoscience. Co-authors included Balaji Rajagopalan, Xiao-Wei Quan, Jih-wang Wang and Laurie Trenary of CU-Boulder, Gerald Meehl, John Fasullo, Aixue Hu, William Large and Stephen Yeager of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Jialin Lin of Ohio State University, and Alan Walcraft and Toshiaki Shinoda of the Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi.

While a number of areas in the Indian Ocean region are showing sea level rise, the study also indicated the Seychelles Islands and Zanzibar off Tanzania's coastline show the largest sea level drop. Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform, and sea rise in some areas correlate with sea level fall in other areas, said NCAR's Meehl.

The Indian Ocean is the world's third largest ocean and makes up about 20 percent of the water on Earth's surface. The ocean is bounded on the west by East Africa, on the north by India, on the east by Indochina and Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica.

The patterns of sea level change are driven by the combined enhancement of two primary atmospheric wind patterns known as the Hadley circulation and the Walker circulation. The Hadley circulation in the Indian Ocean is dominated by air currents rising above strongly heated tropical waters near the equator and flowing poleward, then sinking to the ocean in the subtropics and causing surface air to flow back toward the equator.

The Indian Ocean's Walker circulation causes air to rise and flow westward at upper levels, sink to the surface and then flow eastward back toward the Indo-Pacific warm pool. "The combined enhancement of the Hadley and Walker circulation form a distinct surface wind pattern that drives specific sea level patterns," said Han.

The international research team used several different sophisticated ocean and climate models for the study, including the Parallel Ocean Program -- the ocean component of NCAR's widely used Community Climate System Model. In addition, the team used a wind-driven, linear ocean model for the study.

"Our new results show that human-caused changes of atmospheric and oceanic circulation over the Indian Ocean region -- which have not been studied previously -- are the major cause for the regional variability of sea level change," wrote the authors in Nature Geoscience.

Han said that based on all-season data records, there is no significant sea level rise around the Maldives. But when the team looked at winter season data only, the Maldives show significant sea level rise, a cause for concern. The smallest Asian country, the Maldives is made up of more than 1,000 islands -- about 200 of which are inhabited by about 300,000 people -- and are on average only about five feet above sea level.

The complex circulation patterns in the Indian Ocean may also affect precipitation by forcing even more atmospheric air down to the surface in Indian Ocean subtropical regions than normal, Han speculated. "This may favor a weakening of atmospheric convection in the subtropics, which may increase rainfall in the eastern tropical regions of the Indian Ocean and increase drought in the western equatorial Indian Ocean region, including east Africa," Han said.

The new study indicates that in order to document sea level change on a global scale, researchers also need to know the specifics of regional sea level changes that will be important for coastal and island regions, said NCAR's Hu. Along the coasts of the northern Indian Ocean, seas have risen by an average of about 0.5 inches, or 13 millimeters, per decade.

"It is important for us to understand the regional changes of the sea level, which will have effects on coastal and island regions," said Hu.

The study was funded by a number of organizations, including NCAR, the National Science Foundation, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy.


Red Orbit

Je Huu ni Mwisho wa Siasa za Makundi hapo Zenj?

Wapenda muafaka katika mstakabala wa siasa za visiwani, watakuwa wamefarijika sana kwa Dr. Shein kuongoza katika matokeo ya wagombeaji wa urais visiwani Zanzibar. Ingawa hakuwa wazi juu ya muafaka kama mgombea mwingine wa urais huo Ali Karume, kupita kwa jina la Dr. Shein kunafungua ukurasa mpya katika utawala visiwani humo.

Cha msingi hapa ni kujua ni kwa namna gani anaweza kulinda na kusimamia hatua za awali za kuondoa mpasuko wa kijamii visiwani humo. Sifa kubwa ya nje ya Dr. Shein ni kutojulikana msimamo wake, zaidi ni kuwa amehusu kisiwa cha pili, hivyo kuwepo na uwezekano mkubwa kuweza kusimamia maendeleo ya kuwepo na serikali ya mseto.

Tofauti na Dr. Bilal na Waziri Kiongozi, Dr Shein anaonekana kutokuwa na makundi yenye lengo la kuzoretesha jitihada muhimu zilizofikiwa hivi karibuni juu ya utaifa wa Zanzibar. Hii ni silaha yake kubwa na inabidi aitumie vizuri ili kuweza kutibu gonjwa la muda mrefu la siasa za visiwani hapo.

Kwa kuchaguliwa kwake kwa kura nyingi, kunaondoa dhana iliyojengeka miaka mingi juu ya utawala wa ngazi za juu huko Visiwani, ambao ulitokana na mtazamo wa rais wa kwanza wa serikali ya Mapinduzi. Kuchaguliwa kwa Dr. Shein kutaboresha mambo mengi ambayo yalikuwa yanaidhoofisha Zanzibar,na atafanikiwa tu iwapo ataweza kuendesha serikali bila kujali makundi.

Kwa upande mwingine Dr. Bilal amekumbwa na laana ya ubaguzi ambayo ilianza kumwandama mapema baada ya Dr. Salmin kumaliza muda wake wa uongozi. Ukimya wake wa kutoweka msimamo wake wa wazi juu ya siasa za chuki kisiwani hapo, ndio huo ambao umeendelea kumwondoa katika nafasi hiyo ambayo amejaribu kuigombania mara kadhaa bila mafanikio.

Waziri Kiongozi, kwa mtazamo wangu nae tayali alishaanza kujenga makundi katika safari yake ya kuelekea kuchukua urais visiwani humo. Misimamo yake katika masuala yenye kusumbua zaidi visiwa hivyo hakuweza kuyaweka bayana, hivyo kuashiria kusimamia baadhi ya makundi fulani. Ilikuwa ni njia nyepesi kwake kuweza kuchukua nafasi ya urais, kwani ameitumikia nafasi yake kwa miaka kumi hivyo kumwezesha kumrithi rais Karume.

Zanzibar International Film Festival to attract films from 43 countries

STONE TOWN, Tanzania, July (Xinhua) -- The Zanzibar International Film Festival in Tanzania is expected to attract films from 43 countries to the annual event scheduled on July 10 to July 18.

With the theme of "Hopes in Harmony", the film festival provides one opportunity for all Zanzibaris to come and watch films for free on a big screen, and calls for peace and harmony in Zanzibar, the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Opening films includes "I Bring What I Love", which takes the audience behind the scenes and into the world of Africa's most famous musician Youssou N'dour.

Among the special highlights this year's festival is the world Cup final, which would scream the climax of this extraordinary African football extravaganza on late July 11 in the old fort.

Many of the films to be shown at the festival have highlighted every day life of women in the society, according to the press release. It also includes performing arts, which is a street theatre component and it shall work with the literary forum in showcasing the spoken word in an event and it will bring the local repertories to contact with other spoken word performances.

The film festival is seen by the government as a symbol of enhancing Zanzibar culture and acts as a factor of propagating Zanzibar tourism sector, and thus enabling more tourists to visit Zanzibar and boosting Zanzibar economy.

Zanzibar artists fight for tourist cash

Tourism is now Zanzibar's biggest industry - easily outstripping the trade in spices, traditionally the Tanzanian island's biggest foreign currency earner.

But local artists complain that they are not able to reap the rewards from the tourist boom.

They say that most of the art on sale is mass produced and has little relevance to the island's culture.

The so-called "tourist art" is ruining their livelihood, they claim.

'Commercial artist'

Saidi Omary, 24, paints up to 15 pieces of "tourist art" a week.

"I am a commercial artist, I paint what is marketable," he said.

"I do create original works but they don't sell quickly which is bad because I need the money."

Despite the thriving tourism industry, the island is still very poor.

The average wage is just 60 US cents a day and it is not surprising that artists are turning out effortless reproductions that they can sell for a few dollars.

Awareness
But some artists working in Zanzibar deplore this commercial approach to art.


Artist Hamza Ausiy is dismissive of "tourist art" and says it is ruining his business.

"For me tourist art is boring and confusing, because if you are an artist, you have a dream and creativity but if you do this sort of work you are always looking for bread," he said.

He says his canvases - which cost $200 or more - are all original artworks and feature exclusively Zanzibari scenes.

Artists selling the original works have now got together to form an association to promote their work.

Musa Ramadhan is secretary of the Zanzibar Young Artists Association.

He says artists should be selling to the local market, even if their volumes are small.

"We need to create awareness among the local people to make them like our art and even hang our works in their homes," Mr Ramadhan said.

He says artists in Zanzibar need to change and create ideas from their culture.

"People on this island like religion we should put religion in our pictures," Mr Ramadhan recommends.

For the time being though, the art market in Zanzibar is driven by the hoards of artists selling mass-produced art.


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