Surprise! Poster child for sea level rise, Tuvalu, is actually growing!
From the “we told you so, again, and again” department. We’ve had several articles about the island of Tuvalu and the ridiculous claims of sea level rise causing it to disappear, while at the same time they are building new hotels and airports to attract tourists. Willis has also had several articles on how Pacific atolls grow, and float, rather than sink as sea level advances.
Now, a study confirms what we’ve already known – atolls, and in particular Tuvalu is growing, and increasing land area. So much for climate alarmism. From Nature communications:
Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations
Paul S. Kench, Murray R. Ford & Susan D. Owen
Abstract
Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations. Inundation and erosion are expected to render islands uninhabitable over the next century, forcing human migration. Here we present analysis of shoreline change in all 101 islands in the Pacific atoll nation of Tuvalu. Using remotely sensed data, change is analysed over the past four decades, a period when local sea level has risen at twice the global average (~3.90 ± 0.4 mm.yr−1). Results highlight a net increase in land area in Tuvalu of 73.5 ha (2.9%), despite sea-level rise, and land area increase in eight of nine atolls. Island change has lacked uniformity with 74% increasing and 27% decreasing in size. Results challenge perceptions of island loss, showing islands are dynamic features that will persist as sites for habitation over the next century, presenting alternate opportunities for adaptation that embrace the heterogeneity of island types and their dynamics.
From the discussion section:
Here we present the first comprehensive national-scale analysis of the transformation in physical land resources of the Pacific atoll nation Tuvalu, situated in the central western Pacific (Supplementary Note 1). Comprising 9 atolls and 101 individual reef islands, the nation is home to 10,600 people, 50% of whom are located on the urban island of Fogafale, in Funafuti atoll28. We specifically examine spatial differences in island behaviour, of all 101 islands in Tuvalu, over the past four decades (1971–2014), a period in which local sea level has risen at twice the global average (Supplementary Note 2). Surprisingly, we show that all islands have changed and that the dominant mode of change has been island expansion, which has increased the land area of the nation. Results are used to project future landform availability and consider opportunities for a vastly more nuanced and creative set of adaptation pathways for atoll nations.
Full paper here, open access: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1
How inconvenient for climate alarmists. Now what will they do for claiming sea level rise will inundate Pacific islands?
h/t to WUWT reader Clyde Spencer
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I was just about to put this in the Tips section…that’s why I don’t run a blog like this!
🙂
Yeah, but, no, but yeah, CO2 is making them grow in the wrong way, init?
Ironically, the material that makes them grow contains carbon dioxide.
44% of the weight of a coral reef is CO2!!
I laughed when they said:
This is no surprise to anyone who has spent much time around coral atolls. See my posts entitled “Floating Islands” and “The Irony, It Burns” for a full discussion.
w.
PS—Anthony, the third of your first three links is the same as the second link.
Fixed, cut and paste error on my part.
They just have not learned how to “spin” it yet. The area that is now exposed to sea-level rise has increased so an even greater area is at risk!!
You have a brighter future as a climate scientist/communicator than you realize.
Far better than Bill Nye
Might a monkey with a drinking problem be better than Bill Nye?
Just asking – and seeking to establish parameters.
Auto
Blame China. They’re ‘climate leaders’ and may have kindly snuck in and fixed these islands. They’re good at it.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-07/new-surveillance-images-show-beijings-militarization-south-china-sea
Willis, I suspect the lead author Paul Kench would be in complete agreement with you. He and his associated researchers from the University of Auckland have done a lot of work in the Pacific and have documented similar changes. I expect the surprise part was for the many who would read the article with the expectation of shrinking atolls.
He gives more background in a 2014 article:
Source: https://theconversation.com/dynamic-atolls-give-hope-that-pacific-islands-can-defy-sea-rise-25436
Coral atolls, and barrier islands, too. And what on Earth is changing about Tuvalu’s climate? Is it becoming a desert? Rainfall up/down more than natural variation in the area? I highly doubt there’s anything changing at all, climate-wise.
Charles Darwin’s first monograph, published in 1842, found essentially the same thing.
All this recent research has done is to did up an established truth which had been buried under a mountain of climate “science” disinformation.
Funafuti, the main island of Tuvalu,is where Britain’s Royal Society drilled in three successive years in the 1890s to find hard evidence of Darwin’s ideas on the origin of atolls. In their day these ideas were as controversial as is climate change today. There was no consensus.
By using the term “inconvenient” you are being disrespectful to former vice-president Al Gore, whose two documentary films on climate change contained the word in their titles.
“Delicious” might be more appropriate.
“you are being disrespectful to former vice-president Al Gore”
So?
Isn’t that the guy who disrespected the intelligence of every single human being on the planet and continues to do so?
That was probably the point.
Al Gore’s response upon reading the article? “Doh!”
he kinda looks and talks like Homer Simpson.
More like love child of Homer Simpson and Jimmy Swaggart. That might seem impossible but rising levels of CO2 has changed everything.
Well this may destroy any chance of any climate refugees from the pacific.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
PS I put this in the tips section as well. What a turnaround!! Its a wonder the study got published.
The reason it got published is the authors paid the requisite homage up front to the Climate Change priests with their first lead sentence, “Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations. Inundation and erosion are expected to render islands uninhabitable over the next century, forcing human migration. ”
If you simply cut that first sentence out, nothing would change in their discussion or conclusion. It was merely a bow to the Gatekeepers so that they could pass onto an editorial review to get sent out to referees.
Okay, first two sentences. They could be deleted without any change in how the abstract reads.
But those first two sentences were the price that had to be paid to the climate priesthood for entry to the temple.
“Cheers
Roger”
Oh sure Roger. You’re in New Zealand. Easy to be cheerful when you are so close to Antarctica when reach The Tipping Point. The rest of us will be boiled before we can get there.
Go easy, My city is close to the same latitude of Barcelona Spain.
I’m sure we will boil about the same rate as you guys in the northern hemisphere. 😉 Mind you Antarctica has been accreting ice overall since records began. Maybe the odd friendly iceberg will float our way;)
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Cheers
Roger
“Democracy Now” just ran a story on this phenomenon – about Kiribati – all very similar –
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/23/a_warning_from_the_center_of
I can hear the ClimateCatastrophe™ Whack-a-Mole Machine warming up….
Uh-oh, challenging the consensus is gonna get them in trouble.
Obviously the IPCC money Tuvalu got to ‘fight’ SLR has worked…now can somebody write this up and submit for peer review 🙂 (specifically methods used to augment SLR)
If they send too much money, will the island tip over?
Hopefully they will be ok – but just in case I believe they are only accepting bitcoin
Turns out, once Tuvalu officials realized they would not be coated in $100 bills, the problem went away.
Javert
Wonderful!
Happily not actually imbibing – so you do NOT owe me a monitor.
Thirty seconds earlier and it may have been different!
+ Lots and Lots
Auto ;-))
They were expecting $1000 bills. $100 bills are for chumps!
So this is the alternate meaning and purpose of moveon.org
They quietly move on to other touchstones when needed.
Anthony, maybe you should create a new category for these posts….say the Emily Litella “never mind” category :).
Once again the truth catches up to the CC misinformation.
Sigh. Another day, another denihilist strawman.
Listen, people: no serious scientist ever claimed Tuvalu “was going to be inundated by sea level rise.”
Only climate scientists.
So that means that no serious scientist believes in AGW. I would like to know if there is one serious scientist in the world that is not running computer models and wants nothing to do with computer models that actually believes in AGW. Please provide just one or more if you know of any..
Alan,
Your challenge is impossible to meet, as I suspect you know. (Fallacy of Impassable Impasses, anyone?)
Without exception, the experts who are panicking about global warming are paid to do so.
That’s why you can trust them.
I suspect there may have been some undetected sarcasm around here somewhere…
The funny thing was Tuvalu government took all that Global Warming money and spent it on upgrading their airport to the tune of $20million. Now if you really believed in Global Warming is causing Sea Level rise which is going to doom your island, the last thing you would do is upgrade your soon to be underwater airport. So they knew it was a scam and they got in on it and took advantage of some gullible Liberal westerners.
Just as ironic, jet aircraft are one of the best devices for taking fossil fuels and returning CO2 to the atmosphere.
I can hear it now “If we get all this money due to CO2 let’s create more CO2”
Even better: people will pay to watch it happen!
+1
“gullible Liberal westerners”….with influence to make other people’s money flow
“…influence…”? How about state police power.
Anthony, I don’t know why you think this is ironic. I’m sure that the usual suspects will be telling us this is exactly what they expected additional CO2 to do and that they ‘predicted’ it would happen long ago.
I attempt to be have a general knowledge of the natural environment. I recently reviewed articles about coral reefs ( research would be over exaggerating) Most coral reefs are about 10, 000 years old, the Great Barrier Reef is estimated at 20,000 years old, and comprise about 0.1 % of ocean sea area.
Whilst I support policies to protect corals from collection, overfishing and fertiliser run off it occurs to me that coral reefs are quite resilient considering the climatic changes and sea level rises of the past 12,000 years since the end of the last ice age.
Corals develop in tropical seas and survive even in the Red Sea, at water temperatures of over 30 degrees C, and in colder waters such as around Rockall in the Atlantic.
I would find it enlightening if the process of coral bleaching was explored in a less doomsday manner. Is it a natural process meaning some corals die to be replaced by other species or is it an indicator of a another issue?
It is likely that corals will still be extant after humans have died out.
Yes, corals have been around for more than 400 million years and they are very resilient to “change” – – how else to explain persistence?
I have to dispute the statement above that the Great Barrier Reef is 20,000 years old, because 20,000 years ago sea level was more than 300 ft lower than today. Submarine land that supports the GBR today was dry land 20,000 years ago.
But, wonder of wonders!, as sea levels rose with significant warming at the beginning of the Holocene, the corals continued to grow and colonize the newly submerged coastal margins in lockstep with sea-level rise.
That’s how natural processes work.
Dear Geolgyjim,
As I said I did some reading on the subject. The age of the GBR came from Wikipedia. Genuinely, thank you for your information and knowledge. I prefer WUWT when there is genuine discussion and not polemics. All the best London 247.
GeoJim, that date has been proven by drilling. Remember, the reef is now up to 250 km wide. At the glacial low sea levels the reef would have been at that outer edge, and since then it has built upwards and westwards toward the current shoreline.
I agree that nature changes in response to environment – that’s obvious. However, for the purposes of discussing realistic impacts of AGW, description of the past adaptation isn’t always helpful. Yours, for example, doesn’t address rates of environmental change, colonization, and evolutionary adaptation, habitat availability, very different levels of resilience across species, community diversity, fishing pressure other human-related problems … lots of factors come into play now that didn’t in the past.
Coral bleaching is a natural phenomenon and has been happening ever since corals formed. The Professor Ridd who is being persecuted by his James Cook university because of his opinions has a recent article on this site explaining how corals are surviving quite nicely.
Another Alarmopogenic Global Warming deceit sinks beneath the gently lapping waves of fact-based science.
#Winning!
Islands made of sand ==> This is the same situation we see all around the world with islands made of sand, mud and river gravel. We have seen this in Alaska, along the US East Coast (the Outer Banks), and even in Bangladesh.
The natural forces that form these islands also adds to and takes away from them as Nature sees fit — all controlled by well-understood physical laws — not vaguely calculated (nearly imaginary) human-caused sea level rise.
I have seen North Carolina’s Outer banks reshaped and cut into small pieces by passing tropical storms — and have had the misfortune to lay-over in North Carolina, just north of Beaufort, for the direct hit of Hurricane Irene in August of 2011. “Hurricane Irene cut several breaches across North Carolina Highway 12 on Hatteras Island, isolating the island from the rest of the Outer Banks. Several of the smaller breaches were filled in with sand, but the largest, which is 200 feet (61 m) wide, was left open, recreating Pea Island for the first time since 1945.”
For a time, my wife and I, two kids and a grandchild lived in Sosua, Dominican Republic. We had a favorite tiny beach there — a beach which would inexplicably gain and lose over five vertical feet of sand depending on sea conditions. It was really pretty wild — someday I’ll write a essay about it and provide photos.
Barrier islands are by nature unstable. All the islands in the Beaufort/Morehead City area (or indeed all the NC barrier islands) change constantly in shape and size. Generally onshore winds and surf action cause them to migrate toward the mainland. The exceptions are those that have been allowed to develop, like Bogue Banks and some of the islands north of Cape Hatteras. There the beaches are continually renourished. The real estate is too valuable to be allowed to migrate.
scraft1 ==> My wife and I have spent several seasons (or parts of them) anchored off the docks in Beaufort, within a stones throw of the Nature Reserve on the islands, wild horses — and on up to Harker’s Island area. and all that.
I spend a fair amount of time in Beaufort though my home is in Morehead City. I’ve also cruised Taylors Creek and probably saw you there. Come back sometime.
scraft1 ==> Was there last Spring — brought my boat up from Bock’s Marine, where is we spent the winter doing some refit (though I have to say, it was a lot colder than we had counted on!)
My family has been going to Emerald Isle for decades. The beaches have noticeably changed over the years, particularly the western point that has filled in a shallow arm of the ocean with sand.
An entire, brand-new island emerged from the surf this year just off Hatteras Cape Point. It was duly named Shelly Island, and grew until it joined the Point, with only a small stream separating them at high tide. It’s 27 acres in size, and did all this in less than one year. Don’t underestimate Mother Nature’s ability to build — and destroy.
Aah, but it is only the atolls that are growing — all the rest is going to be inundated real soon.
Watch for climate refugees from all over to flock to Tuvalu.
Does this mean no more underwater cabinet meetings like this one?
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/10/17/article-0-06DAEC79000005DC-40_634x414.jpg
They intend to milk that climate aid money cow for all they can get. I don’t blame them.
Maldivians have more to fear from their political class than from anything else, in common with most other people.
Interesting about the Maldives. Coral was decimated from use as a building material due to a a massive increase in tourism from the 1970s onwards. UNESCO flagged up that at that rate it would be gone in another 30 years. A ban was put on the stripping of Coral in the early 90s. Of course it was so far gone that the Maldives were in trouble from erosion by the sea but it suited the needs of the greenies who blamed it on sea level rise. Today the coral has grown back and the islands are doing fine.
Despite Brexit, Trump and the Russians.
I quite like that:”Brexit and Trump and the Russians, oh my!”
Repeat ad nauseam until 2024.
Even Bikini Atoll where Castle Bravo (15 MT) blew away a large part of the Western end of the atoll looks unchanged if you go compare 1953 pictures with 2018 Google Earth pictures. The intervening 65 years of when Climate Change happenings were supposed to be visible outside our windows, the atoll looks little changed.
And then, anyone with true thinking skills (apparently not climate scientists though) would also realize that those coral atolls somehow have managed to survive 30+ global glacial cycles of rising and falling seas. This end-Holocene 2-3 mm/yr SLR is trivial and must be the hoo-hum business-as-usual scenario to them.
All this we hear about rising atolls/reefs and formation of river deltas was standard ‘o’ level geography in the UK over 50 years ago. Talk about re-inventing the wheel (no doubt at great cost to the taxpayer).