Who knew? After all the fear mongering telling us that islands in the Pacific were going to succumb to climate change, a new study shows this not to be the case. New Scientist has this recent story:
Shape-shifting islands defy sea-level rise
“For years, people have warned that the smallest nations on the planet – island states that barely rise out of the ocean – face being wiped off the map by rising sea levels. Now the first analysis of the data broadly suggests the opposite: most have remained stable over the last 60 years, while some have even grown.”
“It has been thought that as the sea level goes up, islands will sit there and drown. “But they won’t. The sea level will go up and the island will start responding.”
Of course, they have to include some alarmist comments, such as this one:
“Yet warnings about rising sea levels must still be taken seriously. Earlier this year, people living on the low-lying Carteret Islands, part of Papua New Guinea, had to relocate. Kench says anecdotal reports that the islands have been submerged are “incorrect”, saying that instead erosion has changed the shape of the islands, forcing people to move.”
So this is new? Sounds like normal geological and erosion processes to me. Or how about this one regarding sea level rise:
“Barry Brook, a climate scientist at the University of Adelaide in Australia and a supporter of the 350 campaign – which calls for the most stringent global emissions targets in the hope of saving low-lying states from sea-level rise – points out that sea-level rise is already accelerating.”
Last time I checked it seemed that sea level rise was not accelerating:
University of Colorado at Boulder: Sea Level Change
At 3.2mm per year, that is about 12.6 inches per century. Is this unusual, or just ordinary?
The coverage of this story by the mainstream media is entertaining, kind of like the game of “telephone” where the story changes each time it is told. Here’s coverage on news.com.au:
Climate change ‘increases island size’
Not a bad summary, but the editors obviously felt obligated to include the standard “scary” boilerplate as the last sentence in the article:
“However, the study warned that rising sea levels would still be a threat in many parts of the world, and that factors such as erosion could not be discounted as threats to the islands.”
It gets even better at Fox News:
In Face of Rising Seas, Pacific Islands Are Growing
They take this sentence from the New Scientist article:
“During that time [the last 60 years], local sea levels have risen by 120 millimetres, or 2 millimetres per year on average.”
And turn it into this:
“In the same period sea levels have risen by 4 feet 7 inches (120 millimeters).”
Apparently the editors at Fox/NewsCore can’t do math and don’t even know that if you Google “120mm to inches” you’ll get the correct answer of 4.7 inches.
I guess I can still plan that trip to the South Pacific.
