“Going, going, gone. Five of the Solomon Islands have been swallowed whole by rising sea levels, offering a glimpse into the future of other low-lying nations.”

That was the lead sentence to Alice Klein’s New Scientist article “Five Pacific islands vanish from sight as sea levels rise.” The second sentence showed only slightly less panic: “Sea levels in the Solomon Islands have been climbing by 7 millimetres per year over the last two decades, due to a double whammy of global warming and stronger trade winds.”

Alas and alack, the global-warming-causing-rapid-sea-level-rise-that-threatens-lots-of-islands alarm bites the dust—again.

David Middleton demolishes both claims in a critique at WattsUpwithThat.com.

First, it was erosion, not sea-level rise that scotched the islands. And that’s according to the very study that Klein cited as her source. As Middleton summarizes:

The islands, to the extent that they were islands were exposed to intense erosional forces for decades, if not centuries.  They eroded away.  Sedimentary geology depends on lots of things eroding away.  Without erosion, there wouldn’t be much in the way of clastic deposition (like sandstone).

If “five of the Solomon Islands [had] been swallowed whole by rising sea levels, it would be impossible for “islands in the more sheltered Roviana area of the southern Solomon Islands” to “not experience significant coastal recession.”  Secular sea level rise doesn’t care about shelter, waves and storms do.

Second, the claim that sea level has been rising at about 7 mm per year would be significant if true, for it’s double or more the long-term rate. But it, too, is wrong. Middleton explains: “Dr. Albert Parker has previously demonstrated that the 7 mm/yr claim is “cherry picking,” based on tide gauge records from Honiara, Guadalcanal.” In reality, sea-level rise in the area has remained at about the same rate for the last 200 years. See Middleton’s article for details.

 

 

Featured image “Tikehau,” courtesy of Saida, Flickr Creative Commons.