Climate change creates free real estate in Tuvalu: “climate refugees” can all go home

The Green Blob is going to have to get rid of satellites. Real data is so inconvenient.

For years many people called scientists have assumed, like any smart 5 year old would, that islands are fixed blobs of rock and sand that just sit there and sink as oceans rise. Now satellite images show that three quarters of the islands in Tuvalu are growing rather than shrinking.

Total land area is up 2.9%. Total government funded scientists who predicted reality, down 97%.

Since our emissions helped create nearly a square kilometer of free real estate in Tuvalu, it seems only fair that they return any climate funds, and pay a royalty.

The whole of Tuvalu is 26km2 and about 10,600 people live there. Total GDP is $32 million. It’s a cheap marketing tool. In May last year, despite Tuvalu being used as an advertising posterchild for climate change for years, it had not received funding from the Green Climate Fund. In August 2017 UNDP finally promised $38 million. That’s theoretically an extra income equivalent to 20% of their GDP for the next seven years. No wonder these islanders are keen to talk “climate change”.

Scientists who have been getting it right for years are Kench (author of this study) and people like Nils Axel Morner. Organisations that are still getting this wrong include The IPCC and The World Bank. Another star of sea-level science is Dana Nuccitelli at Skeptical Science who said:

Nils-Axel Mörner’s claims regarding sea level rise are the very definition of denial, involving nothing more than conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated accusations of data falsification wich (sic) are easily proven untrue.

Indeed, highly adjusted tide gauges agree with highly adjusted satellite altimeters, and that land you see on satellite images is not there.

What’s the “definition of denial” Dana?

A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu’s nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.

Co-author Paul Kench said the research, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications, challenged the assumption that low-lying island nations would be swamped as the sea rose.

‘We tend to think of Pacific atolls as static landforms that will simply be inundated as sea levels rise, but there is growing evidence these islands are geologically dynamic and are constantly changing,’ he said.

‘The study findings may seem counter-intuitive, given that (the) sea level has been rising in the region over the past half century, but the dominant mode of change over that time on Tuvalu has been expansion, not erosion.’

It found factors such as wave patterns and sediment dumped by storms could offset the erosion caused by rising water levels.

Kench has been skeptical of Tuvalu’s disappearance and talking about how islands are not just simple lumps of rock since at least 2004. So for 14 years he’s been right, but the panic machine has rolled on:

Scientists generally assume that as sea level rises, sand and gravel erode away into the seabed as the shoreline recedes; accordingly, a place like Tuvalu will eventually disappear under a rising sea. “We think that’s nonsense,” Kench tells me. Instead, when big storms or rising sea levels send waves over a narrow atoll, he says, they can transport sand and other sediments across the island to the opposite shore. “It’s what happens on the sandy barrier islands off the U.S. East Coast,” says Kench, who has used computer models to test the scenario on atolls like Tuvalu. What the models projected, he says, was that waves washing over the island caused it to change shape and even move away from the reef edge, but not vanish.

The information that the islands may even benefit from climate change has been out there for years.

CAPTION to image

Examples of island change and dynamics in Tuvalu from 1971 to 2014. a Nanumaga reef platform island (301 ha) increased in area 4.7 ha (1.6%) and remained stable on its reef platform. b Fangaia island (22.4 ha), Nukulaelae atoll, increased in area 3.1 ha (13.7%) and remained stable on reef rim. c Fenualango island (14.1 ha), Nukulaelae atoll rim, increased in area 2.3 ha (16%). Note smaller island on left Teafuafatu (0.29 ha), which reduced in area 0.15 ha (49%) and had significant lagoonward movement. d Two smaller reef islands on Nukulaelae reef rim. Tapuaelani island, (0.19 ha) top left, increased in area 0.21 ha (113%) and migrated lagoonward. Kalilaia island, (0.52 ha) bottom right, reduced in area 0.45 ha (85%) migrating substantially lagoonward. e Teafuone island (1.37 ha) Nukufetau atoll, increased in area 0.04 ha (3%). Note lateral migration of island along reef platform. Yellow lines represent the 1971 shoreline, blue lines represent the 1984 shoreline, green lines represent the 2006 shoreline and red lines represent the 2014 shoreline. Images ©2017 DigitalGlobe Inc

REFERENCE

Kench et al (2018) Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations, Nature Communications (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-02954-1

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-02-pacific-nation-bigger.html#jCp

h/t Pat and previously DonA.

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