The planet is changing. That’s a fact. As for whatever you attribute those changes to, that’s become an intensely debated topic amongst some. Sea level rise is one of the most obvious and rapid changes we’re experiencing today, with levels rising “at least 50 centimeters over the next century,” according to reseracher Simon Albert. Albert’s observation is significant because a recent study he authored at the University of Queensland, Australia, is the first time researchers studied the loss of shoreline in the Solomon Islands under the context of global warming.
The article looked at 11 drowned Solomon Islands. Six of them are experiencing what they call “severe erosion.” Five islands disappeared altogether. With hundreds of islands in this particular South Pacific nation and a small population, there is plenty of uninhabited land in the region. That made it a unique place to conduct a study on sea level rise without some obvious influences of human habitation. They found that sea level rise is about triple the global average each year at about 25%-40% of an inch each year. That’s led to the disappearance of the five islands.
They discovered and analyzed this by observing a series of satellite images of the Solomon Islands between 1947 and 2015. They mapped the specific changes in a subset of 33 coral atolls, finding that the most drastic and rapid changes took place in areas where wave energy was strongest.
The observations are significant. “The rates we have recently seen in the Solomons will be experienced globally in the second half of this century,” Albert says. It’s valuable insight into possible changes over the coming decades.
Socially, the environmental changes have created major changes for the locals. Dr. Albert says that local communities of up to 200 people have since broken into smaller groups, relocating to different areas where they can live off the land and escape the rising shorelines.
