Climate Change In Bangladesh

The climate at a specific location is defined as the 'average' weather conditions considered over a period of years (Skinner & Porter 1987, Michiels et al., 1992) which a changing process that can be evident by the changing pattern of the weather phenomena like temperature, precipitation, humidity etc. Climate change is a major concern all over the world in the recent past and would be in future as its extreme consequences are against of human civilization. There is general agreement that changes in the frequency or intensity of extreme weather and climate events would have profound impacts on both human society and the natural environment (Easterlinget al., 2000). It has been seen that the main factors that affect climate are precipitation

Mean annual rainfal 2320 mm but there are some places where precipitation exceed 6000 mm annually ((Hossain et al., 1987; Murshed et al., 2011 ). Amount of rainfall ranges from 1400 mm at the western region to more than 4300 mm at the eastern part of this heaviest rainfall country (Matsumoto, 1988; Rafiuddin et al; 2010; Shahid, 2010). Again it may also vary from 1,329 mm to 4338 mm from the northwest to the northeast (Shahid et al. 2005, Shahid and Behrawan, 2008) and observations reveal that rainfall gradient is 9 mm/kilometer from west to east (Shahid and Behrawan 2008). Three major rivers- Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna (GBM) forned a large complex delta of the world ((Coleman 1969; Lindsay et al. 1991; Goodbred; Kuehl 2000 and Hoque et al., 2009 ) and they have to drain huge volume of water produced by heavy rain that may cause flood. It is seen that about 25% to 75% area is inundated during normal to extreme flood events each year due (Mirza, 2002; Rafiuddin et al., 2010) may be because of high intense rain in a short period of time or long monsoon period. Bangladesh is declared by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as a most vulnerable country of the world and according to IPCC, Bangladesh will experience 5 to 6% increase of rainfall by 2030 (IPCC, 2007). From 1971, Bangladesh has experienced several flood in 1974, 1987, 1988, 1998 and 2004 with heavy loss of life and property (Keka Israt et al., 2012). In 2007, half of the districts of the country experienced a devastating flood that affected around 10 million (Shahid, 2010). Another climate extreme is drought that is more frequent in some part of Bangladesh mostly in the north-western part. After liberation war it faced nine drought