#ATOLL ISLAND DRIVER#
“What happens to the ecology of the reef in the future is a big driver in what happens to the ecology of the island in the future,” said Ford.
Pacific islands wanted more action on the climate crisis. The Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison speaks at Parliament House on Jin Canberra, Australia. Extreme tides could also cause coastal erosion. As sea levels get higher, islands may experience more frequent flooding that could deteriorate freshwater reserves and make atolls uninhabitable. Research released in September by scientists from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa shows that atoll islands face a variety of threats from rising sea levels. The fact that some islands aren’t “sinking” doesn’t mean climate change isn’t an issue – it is still very much a concern. “It’s entirely the skeletons of the reef and the organisms that live on it.” “This is the first time we can see the islands form, and we can say the stuff making that island is modern … so it must be coming from the reef around the island,” said Ford. “The signal was kind of consistent – there’s no widespread chronic erosion of atoll islands in the Pacific.”įord says his study is the first to not only show an island increasing in size, but also to conclusively establish why that might be happening naturally over time. “That started a bit of a goldrush in terms of studies,” Ford said. More than 88% of islands were either stable or increased in area, according to the study. A 2010 study showed that some Pacific islands hadn’t eroded, and a 2018 study of 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls, including 709 islands, found that no atoll had lost land area. “For the atoll nations, climate change is not a distant threat for a future generation to face but an immediate emergency, with tropical storms and rising seas taking their toll on human lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure,” Nakao said.īut over the past decade, a number of studies have found that some atolls are actually getting bigger. Gianluca PanellaĬlimate refugees cannot be sent back home, United Nations rules in landmark decision Flooding has forced many residents to leave the area. Waves pummel the coast of Temwaiku, a village on Kiribati's capital island of South Tarawa. Sea levels are rising because greenhouse gas emissions are warming the oceans and planet, melting polar ice caps and glaciers.Ī 2018 US Geological Survey study found that many low-lying atolls will be uninhabitable by the middle of this century.Īnd last year, the Asian Development Bank president Takehiko Nakao said the four atoll nations – the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives, which are together home to more than half a million people – were the most vulnerable on the planet to climate change.
“What we don’t know is how that will play out in coming decades.”Ītolls are often only around two meters (6.6 feet) above sea level, but sea levels could rise by more than that by the end of this century, according to scientists. “We have found islands are resilient in the face of rising seas and that sediment supply to some atolls is out-pacing sea level rise,” Ford said. The new study is significant because it shows islands can continue growing, even when sea levels are rising.
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