Because of Climate Change, Five Pacific Islands Have Vanished
As climate change worsens around the world, its effects are increasingly being observed. One notable effect has been the disappearance of five Solomon Islands in the West Pacific due to rising sea levels.
According to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters, five vegetated reef islands have vanished, while six additional islands are “experiencing severe shoreline recession.” In two instances, fishing communities have been relocated because of shoreline erosion.
“Understanding these local factors that increase the susceptibility of islands to coastal erosion is critical to guide adaptation responses for these remote Pacific communities,” the researchers wrote.
The study looked at aircraft and satellite imagery from 1947 and 2014 to examine the erosional rates of 33 islands and purports to be the first to track natural changes in the region instead of from dramatic events. The team of Australian scientists say that the Western Pacific is a hotspot for tracking rising sea levels, with residents in the remote communities constantly having to climb to higher elevations.
The Solomon Islands is home to around 560,000 people across nearly a thousand islands, and many are being forced onto reef islands or to higher elevations instead of being on flat land adjacent to the coast. Taro, the capital of Choiseul Province, is preparing to relocate residents and services, while a village in northern Choiseul has seen over half of its houses have been washed into the ocean.
[Phys.org]
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toecutter the grayCarli Velocci5/08/16 4:08pmSure glad I live in the Midwest.Reply
beantown01toecutter the gray5/08/16 4:23pmOr as we like to call it...the place everyone’s going to be moving over the next 50 years ;-)Reply
FIGJAMtoecutter the gray5/08/16 4:29pmYeah, I’m thinking I should buy my kids some land in rural Oklahoma or Tennessee.Reply- toecutter the graybeantown015/08/16 4:38pmJust so long as you get in before the barricades go up...
Reply - toecutter the grayFIGJAM5/08/16 4:42pmWouldn't hurt. If anything, it will be valuable some day.Reply
Elwood BluezCarli Velocci5/08/16 3:17pmBut... but I thought “they” said Climate Change wasn’t a real thing. Do you mean “they” lied to us?Reply- FIGJAMElwood Bluez5/08/16 4:33pmSeems to me there are climate change deniers, and MAN-MADE climate change deniers. Everyone seems to throw them in the same category but from what I’ve seen, the root difference in the denial is whether humans can really do anything to reverse it, or even stop it.Reply
helgaperezFIGJAM5/08/16 5:52pmThe difference between climate change deniers and man-made climate change deniers is that man-made climate change deniers deny humans caused our current, rapid climate change. There are also some people who accept that climate change is happening and that it is man-made, but who are afraid we can’t stop it because it has gone too far.Reply
artiofabElwood Bluez5/08/16 5:53pm“They” would never lie to us! All “they” want is to sell us fossil fuel-provided energy, which has no possible future ramifications whatsoever, because somehow cause and effect don’t exist in their world.Reply- artiofabFIGJAM5/08/16 5:58pmI think in general communication that “climate change denier” is understood as meaning “person who denies the scientific consensus about modern climate change”. Similarly to how when “creationists” are mentioned online it’s short for “young-earth creationist” even though that’s not the only kind of people who believes in supernatural causes for the existence of species.Reply
ReddishPlainsCarli Velocci5/08/16 3:21pmGuessing these were tiny little islets? How big a landmass are we talking here?Reply
Psychopomps: Sleep & DeathReddishPlains5/08/16 3:34pmFrom the data, the 5 islands that disappeared were 48,890 to 12,240 square meters in 1947.Reply
checaleReddishPlains5/08/16 3:37pmThey may be “tiny” but they contain entire worlds for the people who live there. There are literally dozens of documentaries about this out right now, but “There once was an island” is definitely worth checking out!Reply
PVReddishPlains5/08/16 3:40pmIts not just the reef islands disappearing... its also the flat coastal lands on larger islands vanishing. Don’t worry, its actually far too late to change the fates of this nation. In order for that to happen action would have needed to be taken in the late 1980's or early 1990's. Nothing we do now (short of literally terraforming the shelf) will stop the vast majority of the usable land in this area from being inundated. And nobody is going to spend the money (to terraform) unless these people are being removed and it becomes some sort of tropical resort for the rich and powerful. Besides, there are better coastal areas in sight of mainlands that are better targets for terraforming projects.Reply
TelReddishPlains5/08/16 3:46pmThink Florida’s 1-2ft above sea level.Reply
- JabbererCarli Velocci5/08/16 3:13pmYup, sea levels going up everywhere except North Carolina, where it’s not aloud to go up. It’s the law: http://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carol...Reply
LighticeJabberer5/08/16 3:48pmAh, the fine tradition of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “LA LA LA! Can’t hear you!”Reply
barry99705Jabberer5/08/16 5:10pmWhich restroom does it have to use?Reply
BelievelanderJabberer5/08/16 5:32pmThanks, Citizens United!Reply
GuileKleinJabberer5/08/16 6:34pmWtfReply
Roguewave1Carli Velocci5/08/16 4:20pmI’ll bet there is a reason the warmists who are putting out this scare story do not mention the tiny sea level rise in the 67 years of this “catastrophe.” It is because the rise in that period was an average of ~0.10 inch/yr. or ~6.7inches! If the islands disappeared, look for other reasons than a 7 inch rise in sea levels. For reference, during the 10,000 years of the Holocene we are living in now, sea levels have risen >400 feet and will continue to do so as long as we are in this happy epoch of relative warmth. We are overdue to lapse into the next major iceage and cold is the real danger.Reply
Flying SquidRoguewave15/08/16 4:46pmCiting sources is for the weak!Reply- BelievelanderRoguewave15/08/16 5:29pmNo.100% of everything you just said is wrong. Stop reading WUWT and snorting bath salts.Reply
no one will see thisRoguewave15/08/16 5:37pmAs you fill up something like a say a bowl of soup, or, I don’t know the surface of the earth, the surface area of the liquid increases. This means that it takes relatively more liquid to raise any particular given amount of depth. Further, the beginning half of the Holocene coincided with the end of the last ice age, so there was a lot of meltwater to drain into the seas. In any event, the point is comparing recent sea level rise amounts to that over the entire Holocene is a straw man.The next Ice Age is certainly coming, but not for at least another 1000 to 10000 or more years. In any event, hoping an ice age will save us from global warming seems like a pretty silly idea for a solution.Reply
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