From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
The NYT finally catch up!
We humans have settled in all sorts of precarious environments: parched deserts, barren tundra, high mountains. None are precarious in quite the same way as atolls, the tiny, low-lying islands that dot the tropics. As the planet warms and the oceans rise, atoll nations like the Maldives, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu have seemed doomed to vanish, like the mythical Atlantis, into watery oblivion.
Of late, though, scientists have begun telling a surprising new story about these islands. By comparing mid-20th century aerial photos with recent satellite images, they’ve been able to see how the islands have evolved over time. What they found is startling: Even though sea levels have risen, many islands haven’t shrunk. Most, in fact, have been stable. Some have even grown.
One study that rounded up scientists’ data on 709 islands across the Pacific and Indian Oceans showed that nearly 89 percent either had increased in area or hadn’t changed much in recent decades. Only 11 percent had contracted.
WUWT Addendum
Well, it’s not like the dynamics of Pacific Islands (atolls) hasn’t been discussed here for over a decade.
That’s probably about 1/2 to 1/3 of our relevant stories.
But more importantly.
Follow the money
There is significant resort, airport, and hotel construction activity planned or underway in the Maldives for 2024: New Resorts and Hotels:
- dusitD2 Feydhoo Maldives: Scheduled to open in Q4 2024, this 125-key all-inclusive lifestyle resort will be located on a private island near Malé.
- SO/ Maldives: Opened in March 2024 as part of the CROSSROADS Maldives integrated resort development, featuring beach and water villas.
- Several other new resorts are set to open in 2024, including properties in Vaavu Atoll, Baa Atoll, Raa Atoll, South Ari Atoll, and North Malé Atoll.
- Luxury brands like Mandarin Oriental, Rosewood, and Corinthia are also planning to open new resorts in the Maldives.
Airport Expansions:
- Velana International Airport (VIA):
- A new terminal is set to open in 2024, increasing capacity to 7.3 million passengers.
- Plans for further expansion aim to reach a capacity of 25 million passengers over the next two decades.
- A new domestic terminal will increase capacity from 300 to 2000 passengers per hour.
- Additional facilities include a dedicated low-cost carrier terminal, expanded fuel storage, and increased cargo handling capacity.
- Dhaalu Airport:
- Undergoing rapid expansion with investments over $20 million.
- Runway extension from 1,800 to 2,200 meters to accommodate larger aircraft by December 2025.
- Terminal capacity being expanded by over 30%.
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If sea level were to drown the Pacific Atolls, they should have gone under ten thousand years ago when the last “Ice Age” ended sending sea level up several meters over a very short time.
When I first heard about drowning coral reefs, I knew nothing of them, not a plugged nickel’s worth. But it didn’t seem plausible that coral reefs were only few thousand years old. I looked them up — 100, 200 million years old! That meant they had survived all sorts of sea level changes, both up and down.
It was just one of many lies that convinced me the climate catastrophists had no case. No one with the truth on their side ever lies that much. As for climate science, I still know very little. I’ve learned that tree rings are a lot more complicated, and the climate liars lie about them too. I’ve learned about those retreating glaciers uncovering forests which prove the climate was warmer 1500 years ago; more climate lies.
Everything I’ve learned is because the climate liars lie. They are their own worst enemy.
“Everything I’ve learned is because the climate liars lie. They are their own worst enemy.”
________________________________________________________
However, they are winning. Yes their lies will eventually be exposed, but they will do a colossal amount of damage before that happens.
Yes they are.
maybe exposed by historians 2000 years from now.
Historians ? Its a theology which can only be beaten by a reformation which casts out the high Priests and their indulgences and child saints
After Biden’s performance last night- Trump got a big boost. He looked energetic even to those who don’t like his style. If he wins, I’m sure he’s going to bust the climate cult ASAP. Then leaders of many other nations will follow his lead.
Trump had 4 years to do so and did not succeed. What will be different this time?
He might have both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court and more experience. I dislike the guy- but I dislike the climate cult even more- far more.
Think back on what the left did the entire time he was in office. Russia, Russia, Russia. Untold numbers of attacks, lies and distortions. Two ridiculous, unprecedented impeachments. An entire mainstream media projecting lie after lie after lie, trying like heck to force him out of office. Even now, they fear his potential to reverse their goal of “fundamentally transforming America” that they continue with a gross bastardization of the justice system to try to take him down. Yet, we had lower inflation, a rebounding economy and energy independence. Experienced now, knowing who and what the deep state is, his successes will be enormous. The alternative is to lose our nation to those bent on a socialist dictatorship. Take heed, continue with the current state of affairs and the constitution is toast!
This is because they have the (Unbiased???) Press on their side
I disagree with your pessimistic view that the Warmunists are winning. I read a lot of comment threads on YouTube and other sites, and it is striking how many people are rejecting the lies the MSM have been cramming down their throats for years.
Until the politicians reject the BS, the warmunists are still winning.
Yes, the voters can vote for alternative candidates, but the party machines don’t allow anyone who strays too far from the party line.
I can’t see change happening within the next 5 years.
The politicians and the courts are in fact restraining the wamunists, in red states as well as nationally. Note that the US has not adopted Net Zero as Federal law, despite all the claims by the Bidenistas that the policy is Net Zero. In our Constitutional republic, only Congress can enact laws, not the regulators. Which is the basis of yesterday’s Loper decision by SCOTUS that kills the Chevron doctrine.
It is true that blue states are
net zeroing themselves into self inflicted oblivion. But the voters in those states are eventually going to wake up and decide enough is enough. In the meantime warmunist lawmaking at the Federal level is DOA. Even a warmunist POTUS is restrained as long as Republicans control at least one house of Congress and have a majority of SCOTUS justices.
The strongest weapon for defeating warmunism is SCOTUS, and the best means of controlling SCOTUS is Republican control of the Senate and a conservative in the White House.
Apparently the oceans are boiling, so that will help keep sea levels under control 😉
Boats are sinking, reefs are drowning, ecosystems are dying. Maybe Greta will wake up.
I suspect NYTimes published this as a signal to their followers to no longer continue this narrative as it has become “un-sustainable”. They are struggling to get their narrative less wrong as the election approaches.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive ”
I hated Shakespeare in high school- it was just way, way over my head- but now I’m seeing how brilliant he was. I’m even tempted to read some of his plays. I might now even be able to understand some of it. I presume those educated in the UK were forced fed much of his work. Probably not so much now, too busy studying the climate emergency. 🙂
So you hated Shakespeare. However, the quote ‘Oh what a tangled….’ is from Sir Walter Scott… Marmion.
Huzzah for Willis who explained it all clearly and a long time.
Here is a link to the NYTimes article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/briefing/maldives-atolls-climate-change.html
Maybe paywalled.
Maybe this from The Shanghai Daily is the same article and is not paywalled.
“The outlook for the Maldives is not all doom and gloom,” said Paul Kench of the University of Auckland in New Zealand. “The islands won’t be the same, but they will still be there.”
Kench said his studies of the Maldives show the islands can adjust their shape in response to environmental changes, such as the rising seas and warmer temperatures predicted in the next century.”
that’s from 2009
“The islands won’t be the same”… such is the nature of coral atolls when viewed through temporal lenses
How long before the New Yak Times discovers the Charles Darwin book “Voyage of the Beagle”? And, after they discover it, how long before they denounce it as “Russian Disinformation”?
It’s cuz the coral reefs are dying and their body parts are being washed ashore…thus much worse than we thought.
/s
The real factor is that coral islands are alive! They track sealevel following it up by growing. Bikini Atoll was diamond drilled and the core was continuous coral limestone for ~120m, the sealevel rise following the glacial maximum ~12,000yrs ago.
The next thing NYT will report will be that ‘scientists’ discover that river deltas do the same thing! Here’s how it works. When sealevel rises a cm, seawater moves up stream ~30cms, thereby slowing the sediment-laden river water a little earlier, causing it to begin dumping its load earlier, building the delta upwards by the amount the sealevel had risen! Also, it builds the delta outwards in a widening fan, increasing the area of the land of the delta!
When sealevel drops, that’s when worrying things happen, wave action cuts delta and atoll island down to match sealevel and shrinks island and delta areas.
And yes, man can screw things up by for example, cutting big channels for ‘efficient’ water travel access as in Louisiana, or construction of big airports and tourist buildings as in Tuvalu! Rise in CO2, however is good for deltas and coral atolls, thickening protective vegetation and sea nutrient habitats. Or worse, cooling off the planet and reducing CO2 to reverse all this happy activity- coral are made carbonate, trees of carbon.
People whose only knowledge of marine topography is in temperate to northern regions think they know it all, but of course they don’t.
It’s not even just coral that build up over time as sea level rises. Any coastline that has substantial mangrove forests does just the same, and generally mangrove forests exist in sub tropical and tropical coastal regions of the planet. Anyone who knows the slightest bit about mangroves understands this.
The mechanism of shoreline building with mangroves is that the very dense thicket of mangrove “prop roots” trap sediment as well as biological debris (basically, from the mangroves themselves), which builds up over time to become unsubmerged lands. This process depends upon mean sea level remaining stable or increasing at a slow rate giving time for the material to be collected. Upland of the immediate coastal zone there are varieties of mangroves that are progressively less in need of having “wet feet” and become less saltwater tolerant, replacing the coastal zone varieties.
Here in Florida, the standard progression is red mangrove at water’s edge, trending into black mangroves that tend to develop with drier feet, and lastly there are white mangroves furthest inland that are growing entirely on unsubmerged or uplands. Beyond that point inland other vegetation takes over such as trees, shrubs, and grasses.
Mangroves propagate by having seed pods that float and when they come into contact with either a shoreline or other mangroves, send down prop roots into the water and anchoring in the sands or sediments. That means that under proper conditions, mangroves will keep growing and growing.
The benefits of mangrove forests are that they (1) stabilize the shoreline against waves and wind; (2) provide vital protected habitat for juvenile fishes where they are not in danger of being eaten by bigger creatures, and (3) grows the shoreline seaward.
The same kind of satellite imagery examination has been reported for continental beaches around the world. Many more are expanding than are eroding away.
No doubt a modestly warming climate and abundant CO2 create robust conditions for accelerated growth of mangrove expansion of new land accretion!
As to coral reefs growing with sea level, that seems pretty self evident. If sea level increases, then corals grow on bottom substrates where they could not grow before. As coral grow they tend to stabilize the near shoreline They don’t just sit there and “drown” as the warmunists claim, which is pretty stupid if one thinks about it for even a moment. Coral, depending upon variety, can grow throughout a wide variety of water depths, from a few inches to over 20,000 feet. But they all require seawater, so if sea level rises, the varieties that like shallow water just move right along with the shoreline.
But the other factor that is not so self-evident is that coral are both living polyps but also have hard calcified structures. There are certain varieties of fish, like parrotfish, that primarily feed on corals. They are subsisting on the soft polyps, of course, but their hard beaks bite off the calcified structures to digest the soft polyps, then “poop” out the ground up hard calcium particles. This gradual accumulation of inorganic “fish poop” can reach astounding buildups. The fish poop, however, is mistaken for “sand”, but it is not true sand as in erosional particles from rocks.
In the Bahamas island chain, there is a large central shallow area of the sea called the “Bahamas Bank” that consists entirely of fish poop, at some places more than 2,000 ft thick!!! The colors of the fish poop also vary from pure white to pink, depending upon the varieties of coral that are eaten by fish. This is the same material that washes up on the limestone bedrock that is exposed above mean sea level, becoming beaches, and seaward tend to form bars and other underwater features.
They’re not sinking, but are any of them capsizing? (Other than Guam)
You really need to give a hat tip to the brilliant marine geologist, Hank Johnson, for that little gem.
Considering the expansion of tourism being built, and much more planned, perhaps the inhabitants will, like many here hope for the net-zero trade, get fed up enough to put an end to it by getting rid of their destructive politicians.
But other than that, all the claims are true.
/sarc
“Only 11 percent had contracted.”
Probably from natural wave erosion.
The NYT is only printing this to provide cover for elitist leftists who feel guilty about their exclusive luxury Maldives holiday plans.
So when new studies show climate is “better than we thought”, why don’t the concerned scientists who raise alarms by saying “it’s worse than we thought” get back on TV and say so?
All real scientists search for truth by using the scientific method. Those that remain silent about good news obviously have other agendas.
Just wait till the next “Super Moon”!
Then they’ll all go the way Tuvalu did several years ago.
There is a wealth of literature debunking this stuff.
“Reef islands have continually adjusted to environmental change over the past two millennia”
Several years ago I read an article from 1837 expressing concern about sea level rise for the Maldives. That convinced me we don’t know as much about oceanic dynamics as we think we do.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9889315/
More good news. The CAGW crowd will have to find something else to lie about.