“One factor may be that in some parts of the Pacific, sea levels have been rising more swiftly than the global average”, Strauss said.
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The people of the Solomons, a nation of hundreds of islands famous for spectacular scuba diving experiences and Second World War relics, are already having to adapt to the changing conditions. The phenomenon recently resulted in what will soon be the first climate displacement in the United States, after the government granted $48 million to a sinking Louisiana community in order to relocate it.
This study utilized satellite imagery from 1947-2015 and looked at the coastlines of over thirty islands. The team also discovered that sea level rise “destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations”.
“Rates of shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy”, the study said, “indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves”.
Nuatambu Island – home to 25 families – has lost more than half of its habitable area, with 11 houses washed into the sea since 2011.
Five entire islands in the Solomons have gone underwater in recent years, and six more are slowly being swallowed.
The global rate of sea level rise is 3 millimetres per year, but is likely to accelerate to 7 by the end of the century, as rising temperatures melt ice sheets and cause thermal expansion of the oceans, Albert says.
Sea levels are rising faster now than they were mid-20th century.
“We were first made aware of the severe erosion on these islands in 2012”, Simon Albert, lead author of the study, told weather.com in an email. “I expect that is the case for the Solomon Islands and many other small Pacific islands”. “The sea has started to come inland, it forced us to move up to the hilltop and rebuild our village there away from the sea, ” said Sirilo Sutaroti, the 94-year-old chief of the Paurata tribe after he and his tribe were forced away from the coast.
The study emphasized that it was of critical importance to gain an understanding of the relationship between projected rising sea levels, other global climate changes such as waves, and local tectonics, if the social impact of erosion is to be minimized. Other people were forced to move from the island of Nararo.
In addition, the 1,000-strong town of Taro, the capital of Choiseul Province, is set to become the first become the first provincial capital in the world to relocate the entirety of its population and services in response to the impact of sea-level rise.
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The Solomon islands along with another eleven Pacific Island nations signed the Paris climate agreement in NY this April. The five lost islands and six eroded ones were subject to high wave energy.
