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Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations

Paul S. Kench, Murray R. Ford, Susan D. Owen

2018 · Nature Communications

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From the abstract

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.

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8 selected excerpts · 8 total mentions

vixen99
Neutral mention · rule
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 'Net increase in land area of 2.9%' '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.'
mike_hearn
Neutral mention · rule
Just read any skeptics blog to get a daily feed of such scientists. Here some examples but there's an endless stream: Storms not getting worse: "there is no clear trend in most basins, but a significant decrease in power dissipation index has been detected in the South Indian Ocean basin since 1994, which is almost entirely due to a decrease in both tropical cyclone frequency and duration in this basin", https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01683-2 Pacific islands not drowning: "Results challenge perceptions of island loss, showing islands are dynamic features that will persist as sites for habitation over the next century",…
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 Warming in 20th century over-estimated: "correcting the ocean cold bias would result in a more modest early-twentieth-century warming trend", https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08230-1 Or for more direct refutations: Roy Spencer, climatologist, who has written entire books refuting climate change narratives: https://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Skepticism-Busy-People... Judith Curry, (retired) climatologist, https://judithcurry.com/2024/05/26/fact-checking-the-fact-ch... "All things considered, planet earth is doing fine. We are obviously not facing an existential crisis. Anyone who tells you that we are, is not paying attention to the historical data. Instead, they are concerned about what “might” happen in the future, based on predictions from inadequate climate models, driven by unrealistic assumptions." Nicola Scafetta, climatologist, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/scaffeta-on-his-lates... "The attempts of some of current climate modelers to explain and solve the failure of their GCMs in properly forecasting the approximate steady climate of the last 10 years are very unsatisfactory for any practical and theoretical purpose." John Clauser, Nobel prize winner in physics, https://clintel.org/nobel-prize-winner-dr-john-f-clauser-sig... "Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience." The usual response to all this is usually a No True Scotsman argument similar to the one posted by rsynnott, or a claim that "consensus" doesn't mean everyone agrees but only requires some arbitrary threshold in a carefully selected subgroup. Even there, it fails. The famous claim that 99% of climatologists agree with human-driven global warming doesn't replicate: https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/11/11/215 ... and has severe methodological errors.
revelio
Neutral mention · rule
What if pacific islands aren't actually sinking? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 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. Note how dishonest the scientists are. Their abstract starts by saying "Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations" before getting to the part just quoted where they admit their data says the islands are getting bigger. This kind of brazen dishonesty is pervasive throughout modern academic science. It's not just the "lab leaks are impossible" crowd, you see it in many fields. Data tables don't…
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match summaries which don't match abstracts which don't match IPCC reports which don't press releases which don't match TV news. Here, climatologists used picturesque Pacific islands to motivate major social changes without even bothering to measure whether their claims were true or not up until very recently. And when they did, and discovered the claims were not true, this fact was promptly buried and given no coverage. The misinformation gets repeated - which isn't your fault. After all, how were you to know?
InTheirOwnWords
Neutral mention · rule
Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations, Nature 2018 Here we present analysis of shoreline change in all 101 islands in the Pacific atoll nation of Tuvalu [...] 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. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1
mike_hearn
Neutral mention · rule
That's not inexplicable. There's not much interest in it because a lot of things founders believe about climate are false and believing false things is a quick way to lose money. Tuvalu is a good example of this phenomenon. If you'd invested in a startup planning to make money by protecting Tuvalu from global warming, you would have lost all your money because Tuvalu is growing, not shrinking. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 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.…
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Results challenge perceptions of island loss, showing islands are dynamic features that will persist as sites for habitation over the next century You didn't get unlucky with your choice of Tuvalu, a lot of common beliefs about the impact of climate change are like that. There's little discussion of this phenomenon, because it's taboo to criticize climate related narratives. Only argumentative gits like me are willing to do it. But the smart money knows this and quietly stays away. BTW this isn't specific to climate. I've known and talked to a few VCs over the years, and what I learned is that if there's an important and valuable area they're all collectively ignoring it's usually because they know things that other people don't. For instance, you may have noticed that Silicon Valley VCs usually avoid biotech startups, despite biotech being seen at one time as a high tech industry with potential similar to computing. That's because such startups often come out of academia, and VCs were aware of the replication crisis/fraud problems in biology earlier than most.
revelio
Neutral mention · rule
Several of the possibilities you raise here are disproven by real world data. W.R.T. corals, claims of coral reefs being harmed by climate change have been discredited in recent years. Although scientists claimed for years that the corals were being severely harmed by emissions, 2022 had the highest coral cover in the GBR since records began in the mid 80s. It's confusing because the media reported several supposedly severe die-offs in the corals in the six years before 2022, but coral takes 5-10 years to regrow after a major die-off so those reports cannot have been correct. Coral bleaching is caused by sudden changes in temperature, but most bleachings don't seem to…
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cause die-offs and it's the speed of change that seems to trigger it, not so much the absolute temperature. Sea level rise is small, constant over a much longer time period than the industrial era, and primarily caused by changes in the height of the land not the sea. That's why the Pacific islands that were supposedly in danger from climate change have actually grown over time, not shrunk. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 Finally, the hockey stick graphs that are so famous are all scientifically fraudulent, being based on techniques like dropping any input data that doesn't yield hockey stick graphs.
revelio
Neutral mention · rule
Yeah. A great example of the corruption problem is the story of Tuvalu. Here's a research paper from 2018 that looked at the size of the islands using radar data: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1 It starts by saying: "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" but then just two sentences later: "Results highlight a net increase in land area in Tuvalu of 73.5 ha (2.9%) [in the past 40 years], despite sea-level rise, and land area increase in eight of nine atolls" Tuvalu got bigger! It goes on to explain that…
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Tuvalu has grown due to other factors that were not previously considered. Yet the field is so corrupt that a paper literally reporting that Pacific islands are getting bigger has to start by repeating the claim that those very same islands will be "inundated" and "rendered uninhabitable". It goes on to argue that maybe the biggest problems the islands face is not climate change per se but rather "the historic imprint of colonial agendas and entrenched land tenure systems". That was in 2018. It had no effect on the narrative whatsoever. In 2019 the Guardian wrote a huge story telling its readers that Tuvalu is going to be drowned by climate change and how angry they are at Donald Trump because in future they'll have to evacuate their homes: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/16/o... “Tuvalu is sinking” is the local catch-all phrase for the effects of climate change on this tiny island archipelago on the frontline of global warming. The entire story is misinformation, but you'd never know that if you didn't double check these things and the Guardian not only never will but actively tells its readers that people who do double check are evil.

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