By Emilie Raguso and Sandhya Somashekhar (for Salon.com)

Bangladesh is a poor country the size of Wisconsin, bursting with a population nearly half that of the United States. On top of rampant illiteracy, poverty and disease, the country suffers year after year from devastating natural disasters.

Now they’re also suffering from the effects of climate change. Experts say warmer global temperatures will increase the intensity of cyclones that form over the Bay of Bengal, sending more violent storm surges crashing into the coast. The saltwater front will crawl further inland, rendering farmland unusable and polluting much of the country’s drinking water. The Sundarbans National Forest, a wild swath of mangroves that plays an important role in the nation’s ecology, could be wiped out. Most alarmingly, as much as 18 percent of the land could slip into the bay in the next 100 years because of rising sea level, according to the World Bank, displacing as many as 30 million people.

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[NOTE: This piece is part of "Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet"—a joint project of the journalism school, Salon and NPR's "Living on Earth" reported by journalism students under the guidance of Sandy Tolan.]