The 13th First Climate Refugees

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [see update at end]

Every few years we get another media piece about the “first climate refugees”. I’ve written about the latest one below.

Here are the first through sixth first climate refugees, and the seventh, ninth, and eleventh-tenth first climate refugees. Where are the eighth first climate refugees? No clue, it’s hard to keep track of them all. Oh, and here are the twelfth first climate refugees.

So where are the 13th first climate refugees? They are some of the Kuna (or Guna) people. They live in Panama, on a tiny island named Gardi Sugdub. And by tiny, I mean minuscule. It is about 1200 feet (366 meters) long and 450 feet (137 meters) wide. The media piece about them is called “Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels“. Inter alia it says:

The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades.

and

Steven Paton, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s physical monitoring program in Panama, said that the upcoming move “is a direct consequence of climate change through the increase in sea level.”

Bear in mind that the person commenting works for the Smithsonian Institute, which will be of interest later.

And below is a view of the island.

Figure 1. Google Earth view of Gardi Sugdub. The word “overpopulation” comes to mind …

So … is “climate change” the reason why the island is going to be abandoned? Are we humans truly to blame?

Well … yes, humans are to blame, but it’s not the result of “climate change”. From the Smithsonian Institute, you know, the Institute that Steven Paton quoted above works for, I find the following (emphasis mine):

Natural Disturbances and Mining of Panamanian Coral Reefs by Indigenous People

HÉCTOR M. GUZMÁN,* CARLOS GUEVARA, AND ARCADIO CASTILLO
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Abstract: Before the 1980s, coral reefs were considered relatively stable and healthy in Kuna-Yala, Caribbean Panama. During the 1980s, however, several natural disturbances changed the reef’s community structure. We evaluated historical changes in coral cover and for the first time provide quantitative evidence of a large-scale process of reef degradation.

This process started long before the onset of these disturbances as a result of demographic growth and the traditional practices of the Kuna people. Living coral cover declined 79% in 30 years (1970–2001) while the indigenous population increased 62%. We measured 20 km of seawall built with mined reef corals (16,000 m3) and an increase in island surface area of 6.23 ha caused by coral land filling. Consequently, coastal erosion has increased as a result of the lack of a protective natural barrier and a 2.0 cm/year local increase in sea level. Coral-mining and land-filling practices to accommodate population expansion and mismanagement of resources have significantly modified the reef ecosystem and will have serious long-term consequences.

So no, the problem is neither “climate change” nor “rising sea levels”. It’s overpopulation resulting in coral mining, landfilling, and reef destruction that are forcing the move. There’s much more good stuff in the study, interesting reading.

And in any case, how much has “climate change” increased the sea level trend in the area? Well … not at all. Here’s the nearest station with data up to the present. In the last 100 years, the sea level has risen by 137 mm (just over five inches).

Figure 2. Sea level in Balboa, Panama. Note that there is no visible acceleration in the rate of sea level rise from the start of the record in 1910 up to the present.

I’ve written before about how if you destroy the reef, you destroy the island. It’s discussed in a piece called Floating Islands and another called Why The Parrotfish Should Be The National Bird. If you’re interested in preserving the coral atolls, you might give those posts a read.

[UPDATE] I finally tracked down where the Smithsonian got their unimaginable claimed sea level increase of 20 mm (“2 cm” in their study) per year. Near as I can tell, it comes from a very short (only 6+ years of “research quality” data) University of Hawaii tide station in El Porvenir, across the bay from Gardi Subdug. Here’s that record:

Note the large swings, including a 100mm (4 inch) rise in one year. YIKES! For reasons like this, in their study Sea Level Rise in Australia and the Pacific, Mitchell et al. open by saying:

It is generally accepted that the determination of a trend in a sea level record is only possible when a long time series of observed elevations over many years is available. The small magnitude of the trend on the one hand, and the perturbation of the record by systematic noise over a wide range of
frequencies on the other, determine that this is so.

Per Mitchell et al in the same study, a “long time series” is 50 years or more … so you can see how using a paltry six-year record will give bogus answers like the 20 mm/year sea level rise quoted by the Smithsonian folks.

w.

PS: Yeah, you’ve heard it before—when you comment please quote the exact words you are discussing. It avoids endless misunderstandings. And if you want to show that I’ve made some error(s), please read this short thread that tells you How To Show That Willis Is Wrong