Historic floods alert: MIT study finds 10-fold jump in Bangladesh's storm tide risk as global temperature spikes

Every decade, Bangladesh braces for storm tides that once struck only once a century. Now, a new study by MIT warns that as global temperatures rise, the country’s nightmare could become routine. With relentless seas, surging cyclones, and a swelling monsoon season, one of the world’s most vulnerable nations faces a dangerous new normal — one that could bring devastating floods every few years.

 

In a future where fossil fuels burn unchecked, Bangladesh is poised to endure catastrophic storm tides once every decade — an event that was once expected only once in a hundred years. Scientists from MIT, writing in One Earth, say even the less extreme tides, previously seen every 10 years, could now strike frequently.

Home to over 171 million people in an area the size of New York state, Bangladesh’s geography makes it particularly susceptible. A low-lying delta, the country faces regular monsoon rains and tropical cyclones — flooding has long plagued its agricultural recovery.

But the risks are rising fast. The MIT study reveals that tropical cyclones may soon overlap with the already devastating monsoon season. "Until now, cyclones and the monsoon have occurred at separate times," the study noted. But with global warming, back-to-back flooding events are likely, triggering "compound and cascading effects."

"Bangladesh is very active in preparing for climate hazards and risks, but the problem is, everything they're doing is more or less based on what they're seeing in the present climate," Sai Ravela, co-author and principal research scientist at MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, said.

Ravela warned of a stark future: "We are now seeing an almost tenfold rise in the recurrence of destructive storm tides almost anywhere you look in Bangladesh. This cannot be ignored."

The modeling by Ravela, postdoc Jiangchao Qiu, and professor emeritus Kerry Emanuel projects storm tide hazards under various climate and sea-level rise scenarios. These events, where tidal conditions intensify cyclone-induced surges, could be far more frequent than ever imagined.

"A lot of these events happen at night, so tides play a really strong role in how much additional water you might get," Ravela explained.

Even with Bangladesh’s strides in early-warning systems, embankments, and community shelters, preparations have hinged on past storm frequencies — data that no longer reflect the future.

“If the monsoon rain has come in and saturated the soil, a cyclone then comes in and it makes the problem much worse,” Ravela added. “People won’t have any reprieve. And this only emerges because warming happens.”

While this study zeroes in on Bangladesh, Ravela cautions that its implications reach far wider. "Maybe where you are, the story is about heat stress, or amplifying droughts, or wildfires. The peril is different. But the underlying catastrophe story is not that different."