Slow Pacific Sea Level Rise Disappoints Alarmists
Claims of ‘catastrophic’ climate change and sea level rises are in the news again in the wake of Hurricane Dorian. But not helping alarmist hyperbole is an important paper on sea level rise in the Pacific.
The study, PACIFIC SEA LEVELS RISING VERY SLOWLY AND NOT ACCELERATING in the journal, Quaestiones Geographicae 38(1) dispels any fears.
Introduction
Duvat (2018) recently pointed out that over the past decades, the atoll islands of the Pacific
(and Indian) Ocean exhibited no sign of drowning because of sea-level rise. The data, that covers 30 atolls including 709 islands, reveal that no atoll lost land area, 88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, and only 11.4% of islands contracted.
Duvat (2018) reports for the atoll islands investigated rates of rise from tide gauges, and not from satellites, as it is reasonable, observing that atoll islands affected by alleged rapid sea-level rise did not show a distinct behaviour compared to other islands.
The rates of rise of the sea level reported in Duvat (2018) vary from the +2 mm yr−1 of Pingelap and Mokil, Federated States of Micronesia, to the +5.1 mm yr−1 of Funafuti, Tuvalu. These rates originate from subjective analyses of tide gauge data of poor quality and length.
Other studies of the sea levels such as Parker (2013a, 2016a, d, 2018d), and Parker and Ollier (2018b), suggest much smaller rates of rise while explaining the reasons for uncertainty.
Conclusion
The Pacific Atolls are not drowning because the sea level is rising much less than what was once thought. By considering the average of the 29 long-term-trend (LTT) tide gauges of Japan,
Oceania and West Coast of North America, both the relative rate of rise and acceleration are negative, −0.02139 mm yr−1 and −0.00007 mm yr−2, respectively.
Since the start of the 1900s, the sea levels of the Pacific have been remarkably stable,
rising or falling mostly because of subsidence. The evidence proposed by Duvat (2018) is supported by the long-term tide gauge indication.
Parker, A., Ollier, C., PACIFIC SEA LEVELS RISING VERY SLOWLY AND NOT ACCELERATING, QUAESTIONES GEOGRAPHICAE 38(1) • 2019, http://geoinfo.amu.edu.pl/qg/current/quageo-2019-0007.pdf (accessed online: Sept 04, 2019)
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