Earth’s political boundaries will always shift as conflict rises and regimes fall.
We are used to this sort of change and the out-of-date maps it produces.
But nothing in the history of human diplomacy has prepared us for what’s coming next — countries that physically cease to exist as the land they are made of is swallowed up by rising seas.
The Maldives is made up of 1,192 small coral islands with an average elevation of three feet. Photos via NASA / Wikimedia
For low-lying nation states like the Maldives, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and Kiribati, it’s not a question of if, but when.
Keeping the world to two degrees Celsius of warming, the stated goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change, would still result in 15 feet of future sea level rise, according to analysis by Climate Central.
At 16 feet, the Maldives and Tuvalu would be completely submerged.
The Marshall Islands would be 99 percent underwater, and Kiribati 97 percent.
Even a few feet of sea level rise — within the realm of possibility for this century — would devastate these countries and permanently change their landscapes.
“Life is difficult enough on these small islands, surrounded by the vastness of the ocean, without adding the challenges of sea level rise, more dangerous extreme weather, and the loss of food and fresh water resources,” write Andrew Holland and Esther Babson of the American Security Project in a recent report for the Center for Climate and Security.
The islands have made up for their small populations and poor resources by forming alliances with each other, and yet a humanitarian crisis is almost guaranteed.
Kiribati has made some effort to plan for the future, by purchasing land in Fiji that currently grows food for the people of Kiribati and may one day house them as well.
But it’s most likely that the exoduses will happen in sudden moments of crisis, when storm surges flood whole islands and poison freshwater resources.
“What we should expect is more uncontrolled migration from island to island, to cities and developed countries,” write Holland and Babson.
The island of Funafuti is one of nine that make up Tuvalu, and is home to about 6,000 people.
Where will climate change refugees go when their homes are destroyed, and will they be welcomed when they arrive?
Will the magnitude of the crisis prompt nationalist, reactionary policies that see borders shut down and xenophobia climb?
You might say that’s already happening today, with refugees from Syria’s brutal war, set off in part by climate change, being portrayed as potential threats in the mainstream discourse of the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.
And what happens to the political entity of a nation state when its physical land is abandoned?
What rights do former inhabitants still claim to that region and the economic resources it may still hold?
Currently the island nations lay claim to an exclusive economic zone that extends 200 miles in all directions.
Who will own the rights to fish when the land is all but gone?
The international community has yet to grapple with these questions, and there will be no easy answers.
The Kwajalein Atoll is one of 29 that make up the Republic of Marshall Islands.
China has shown an increasing interest in the region, and has upped climate change aid to these countries dramatically.
One motivation could be a desire to ultimately have more say in who gets to control these island resources when the people move away.
A power struggle between countries vying for influence is possible, and preventing it will depend on a great deal of international cooperation in a forum where the ground rules have yet to be invented.
Kiritimati is the largest atoll in the Republic of Kiribati.
The recent promise of United States President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement ups chances that nations will look to their own interests before helping their neighbors.
The U.S., after all, is the richest country in the world and the one that has contributed the most to climate change.
If it will shirk responsibility for the damage it has wrought, why would another step up?
And the rest of the world will certainly have its own troubles.
“These problems are not unique to small, poor island nations,” write Holland and Babson.
“It is only that they will be forced to deal with them first.”
This interactive map
shows how much plastic is found in the world's oceans. Most of the
plastic comes from rubbish dumped into rivers, which is then carried
into the sea (Credit: Dumpark)
Map visualises the estimated concentration of floating plastic waste in the world's oceans
Densities of plastic are shown as white dots around the map, each of which represents 20 kilograms (44lbs)
Eight million tonnes of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year, endangering marine and human life
The map was created to underline the issue of plastic pollution and encourage people to take action
As much as 8 million tonnes of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year, endangering marine life and, if it enters the food chain, endangering humans too.
Now, an interactive map has revealed where the 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic adrift in our oceans end up.
Densities of plastic are shown as white dots around the map, each of which represents 20 kilograms (44 lbs) of damaging ocean waste.
In the Sailing Seas of Plastic map, graphic designers at New Zealand-based data firm Dumpark visualised the estimated concentration of floating plastic debris in the world's oceans.
When zoomed out, the map seems to show that plastics in the ocean are large floating landfills, 'but as you zoom in you realise the complexity of the issue: The ocean is quite a vast surface, and similar to a starry night, there are a lot of little bright dots,' said map researcher Mr Laurent Lebreton.
The graphic reveals that the North Pacific Ocean suffers the most from plastic pollution, with an estimated 2 trillion individual pieces adrift in its waters.
This works out at around 87 million kilograms (193 million lbs) of waste in total, nearly one third of plastic pollution in all oceans.
Much of this waste is focused around China and Japan, tracing the North Pacific gyre, one of Earth's five major gyres, which are powerful circular ocean current systems caused by wind patterns and the rotation of the Earth.
The map shows that the Indian Ocean is a hot spot for global plastic pollution, with 1.3 trillion pieces of floating plastic.
Previous research has shown that as much as 60 per cent of the world's plastic waste comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand.
This is likely the reason the North Pacific and Indian Oceans are so heavily polluted, as gyres carry waste outwards from the coasts of these nations.
The map is based on a study titled 'Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans' from oceanographer Dr Marcus Eriksen.
According to the study, there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans, enough to circulate our equator 425 times.
Dr Eriksen and his team went on 24 nautical expeditions between 2007 and 2013 across all five of the Earth's major gyres.
Densities of plastic are shown as white dots around the graphic, each of
which represents 20 kilograms (44 lbs) of damaging ocean waste
When zoomed out, the map seems to show that plastics in the ocean are
large floating landfills, 'but as you zoom in you realise the complexity
of the issue.
The ocean is quite a vast surface, and similar to a
starry night, there are a lot of little bright dots,' said map
researcher Mr Laurent Lebreton.
Pictured is the amount of plastic waste
found in the Atlantic Ocean
The researchers took in 680 loads of plastic on their trip and noted down 891 visual assessments of floating waste, then crafted a statistical model to work out how plastic is spread around the world's oceans.
They found that, when added up, all of the ocean's plastics weigh more than 38,000 African elephants.
'The plastic industry suggests the only solution is through our own efforts — recycling, incineration, responsible personal waste management,' Dr Eriksen told Vox.
The graphic reveals that the North Pacific Ocean (pictured) suffers the
most from plastic pollution, with an estimated 2 trillion individual
pieces of plastic adrift in its waters
The map shows that the Indian Ocean is a hot spot for global plastic
pollution, with 1.3 trillion pieces of floating plastic.
Previous
research has shown that as much as 60 per cent of the world's plastic
waste comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, Philippines,
Vietnam, and Thailand (pictured)
'But the reality is that the industry itself needs a design overhaul - they should strive to recover 100 per cent of their products, or make them 100 per cent environmentally harmless.'
Dr Eriksen and his team also investigated what types of plastic were polluting the oceans most.
'We found an astounding number of those little balls in deodorant roll-ons,' he said.
'The bigger items tend to be solid plastic: Toothbrushes, army men, bouncy balls, milk jugs, buckets...'
The map is based on a 2014 study in which a team of oceanographers went
on 24 nautical expeditions between 2007 and 2013 across all five of the
Earth's major gyres.
Pictured is the field locations where count
density (right) was measured for different sizes of plastic fragments
(bottom left of each grid)
This image shows the numbers (right) of different sizes of plastic
fragments (bottom left of each grid) that the team found.
Red indicates a
high density while green shows a low density.
The team took in 680
loads of plastic on their trip and noted down 891 visual assessments of
floating waste, then crafted a statistical model to work out how plastic
waste is spread
But the researchers said that most of the pieces of plastic they found was in confetti-sized shreds.
Of the 5.25 trillion particles Dr Eriksen's team calculated, 92 per cent are microplastics, either broken-up bits of larger plastic items, or small pieces like facial scrub microbeads.
'Most of these microplastics are so small you can't really tell what they are,' Dr Eriksen said.
'You drag a net through the ocean and come up with a handful of plastic confetti - particles the size of fish food.'
A newly formed volcanic cone between the Tonga islands of Hunga Tonga
and Hunga Ha‘apai erupts on 15 January 2015, releasing dense,
particle-rich jets from the upper regions and surges of water-rich
material around the base.
The monthlong Hunga eruption created a new
island that is now the subject of study and promises to reveal new
aspects of the region’s explosive volcanic past.
Credit: New Zealand
High Commission, Nuku’alofa, Tonga
A recent volcanic eruption near Tonga in the southwest Pacific created a new island, giving scientists a rare opportunity to explore the volcanic record of this remote region.
In late December 2014, an undersea volcano erupted between two small islands in the Tonga volcanic arc northeast of New Zealand, sending steam and dense ash plumes high into the air.
By the time the eruption ended about 5 weeks later, a new island had formed, eventually bridging the gap between the original islands.
Winds and ocean waves then began rapidly reshaping the newly emerged volcanic cone.
Ten months after the eruption, we visited the new island, which we unofficially nicknamed Hunga Island.
There, we attempted to characterize the volcanology of the eruption, begin tracking the rate of erosion on the new island, and assemble a history of volcanism in this region of the southwest Pacific.
Our findings reveal a shallow submarine volcanic caldera adjacent to the new volcanic island, and they highlight how incomplete the volcanic record can be at remote oceanic volcanoes.
Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai with the GeoGarage platform
(Linz nautical chart & CNES imagery 2017)
Signs of Eruption
The uninhabited islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai lie 65 kilometers north of Nuku‘alofa, the capital city of the Kingdom of Tonga. Between 19 December 2014 and 28 January 2015, residents of Nuku‘alofa witnessed several large volcanic plumes rising from an eruption in the direction of the two islands [Global Volcanism Program, 2015], as seen in the news video below.
Newly awakened Hunga Ha'apai volcano creates large new Tongan island.
The plumes were the result of an explosive interaction between seawater and magma rising from a plateau about 150 meters below the ocean surface.
The plateau is part of Hunga, a massive, submerged volcanic edifice that rises more than 2000 meters from the surrounding seafloor and the site of volcanic activity as recently as 1988 and 2009 [Global Volcanism Program, 2009].
The 2014–2015 Hunga eruption deposited material between the islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai, initially creating an isolated third island before connecting with Hunga Ha‘apai.
In less than 3 weeks, the eruption built up a circular area of land with a diameter of about 2 kilometers and a height of 120 meters.
This oblique aerial view shows the new Hunga cone and crater on 6
November 2015, stretching between the islands of Hunga Ha‘apai and Hunga
Tonga (top).
The crater rim is about 550 meters in diameter.
Credit:
Brendan Hall
A Violent Volcano Under the Sea
Hunga Ha‘apai, Hunga Tonga, and a reef to their south sit on the rim of a submarine caldera known as Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai.
The islands and reef are the only surface features betraying the presence of the largely submerged Hunga volcano (Figure 1).
Fig. 1. Water depth measurements show the Hunga edifice on which the
islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai lie. Neighboring volcanoes
include the active Metis Shoal.
The inset shows the Tonga archipelago’s
location within the Kermadec-Tonga volcanic arc at the boundary between
the Pacific Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate.
Credit: Shane Cronin
Hunga volcano is one of many volcanoes in the Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc that formed in response to subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Indo-Australian Plate.
Many highly explosive eruptions along this chain have had significant regional consequences [see, e.g., Caulfield et al., 2011].
These occurrences suggest that Hunga volcano may itself have had a similarly violent past.
Past research indicates that radiating, outward dipping lava flows and pyroclastic deposits on the two older Hunga islands represent small remnants of the rim of a very large volcano surrounding a caldera structure [Bryan et al., 1972].
This volcano may have suffered catastrophic collapse or prolonged erosion, obscuring it from view.
A nautical chart recently created for Nishinoshima island has fallen behind the growth of the real island.
The red curves on the center left of the island, apart from contour lines, indicate the locations of pre-eruption coastlines.
In November 2015, we conducted a land and ocean survey of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai and the new island.
Our goals were to characterize the recent eruption and collect baseline quantitative topographic data for tracking erosion rates.
We also wanted to assemble a longer history of the area’s volcanic and tsunami activity by surveying the older Hunga islands and surrounding shallow waters.
On the new island, we discovered that coarse deposits from falling water-rich jets of pyroclastic rock fragments form the lower beds of the cone, consistent with videos and photos of the eruption in progress.
Where waves have cut into the shoreline, the pyroclastic deposits appear poorly consolidated and poorly sorted.
The upper part of the cone is steeper and reflects a gradual “drying” (decrease in water interaction with magma) of the eruption as it proceeded.
This upper region is made up of thin, fine-grained beds of ash deposits, interspersed with ash-dominated sediments typical of lateral currents of particles, air, and steam.
The cone reached its maximum diameter by 7 January 2015 but continued to increase in height over the next 2 weeks.
Once the vent was completely surrounded by pyroclastic deposits, much higher eruption columns began.
Such Surtseyan eruptions—from a shallow sea or lake water—have only rarely been witnessed since the phenomenon was first seen during the formation of Surtsey, Iceland, in 1963 [Kokelaar, 1983].
A new crater lake sits atop the Hunga cone, created in the recent eruption between the islands of Hunga Ha‘apai and Hunga Tonga in the Tonga volcanic arc.
Credit: Marco Brenna
Rilling
of the island’s surface—forming dendritic erosion patterns—started
during the cone growth, but it accelerated with rainfall once the
eruption ceased. In addition, wave erosion began to rapidly attack the
base of the island.
Wave erosion was strongest on the southern side of
the cone, exposed to the southeast trade winds and associated ocean
swells.
There, the island has shrunk by more than 500 meters from its
initial posteruption shore, leaving 40-meter-high collapsing cliffs.
Strong rilling and gullying of the fresh volcanic material making up the
new island that abuts Hunga Ha‘apai underscore the rapid rate of
erosion in the area.
Coastal erosion has cut into the initial
posteruption shore by more than 500 meters, leaving 40-meter-high
collapsing cliffs on the island’s south side.
Author Shane Cronin stands
near a large gully.
Credit: Marco Brenna
In the 2.5 years since its formation, the primary volcanic cone lost about 40% of its original footprint, which spanned roughly 8 square kilometers.
However, the island has remained roughly the same in overall area because erosion has been matched by long-coast redisposition of the volcanic material in beach bars, altering the island’s shape.
Taking Samples
Shortly after the eruption, we carried out a photogrammetric survey using a drone and real-time kinematic GPS control points to provide a baseline for future monitoring.
We collected samples to chemically characterize the new volcanic material and compare it with deposits of the broader volcano.
On the older Hunga Ha‘apai islands, we found welded pumice-rich ignimbrite units and nonwelded pyroclastic flow deposits, laid down by superheated flows of gas and particles.
Such deposits attest to past huge explosive eruptions from this long-lived volcano.
One pyroclastic flow deposit contained charcoal, which we dated to the period 1040–1180 CE.
This deposit correlates closely in age and chemistry to ashfall deposits found on Tongatapu Island, 65 kilometers to the southwest [Cronin, 2015].
It also corresponds, within uncertainty bounds, to an unknown tropical eruption in 1108 CE that produced more than 1°C of global cooling [Sigl et al., 2015].
Seafloor Mapping
We also mapped the seafloor surrounding the new island at a resolution of about 1 meter using a WASSP® multibeam sounder.
Fig. 2. A bathymetric sonar survey of the seafloor near the islands of
Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai, conducted in November 2015, shows the
summit platform of the submerged Hunga volcanic edifice.
The dashed
black line outlines a previously undocumented caldera, which lies 150 to
180 meters below the surface.
Traces of past eruptions along the
caldera rim are clearly visible; the inset gives the locations of the
1988 eruptions in greater detail.
Areas colored white represent depths
greater than 200 meters, beyond the range of the sonar system.
Credit:
Simon Barker
The seafloor survey revealed a large closed depression to the south (Figure 2), consistent with the caldera postulated by Bryan et al. [1972].
The depression is approximately 150 meters deep and measures about 4 × 2 kilometers, with its northern and southern portions filled by younger volcanic deposits.
A broad, shallow area is associated with the 2009 eruptions south of the island formed in 2015 and a chain of cones formed in 1988 to the southeast.
Numerous other cones surround the rim of the caldera.
The caldera likely formed when an older Hunga edifice collapsed violently into the sea.
This collapse may be the source of the unknown South Pacific eruption about 1000 years ago.
Next Steps
Our first observations highlight how rapidly new volcanic forms are eroded in this area and imply that the volcanic record in the Tonga region is extremely fragmentary.
In future visits, we will continue investigating past eruptions while extending submarine surveys and sampling around the new island to monitor the ongoing changes in response to storms and other events.
A traditional Polynesian voyaging canoe has returned to Honolulu in Hawaii, completing the first-ever round-the-world trip by such a vessel.
The boat, the Hokule'a, took three years to journey around the globe.
Hawaiian Hokule'a canoe makes it round the world
The Hokulea’s mission: To inspire people to take care of “island Earth.”
Its crew navigated without modern instruments, using only the stars, wind and ocean swells as guides.
They aimed to use the same techniques that brought the first Polynesian settlers to Hawaii hundreds of years ago.
Hawaii celebrated the Hokule'a's homecoming on Honolulu's Magic Island peninsula.
Built in the 1970s, it has travelled around 40,000 nautical miles (74,000km) on this latest trip, known as the Malama Honua voyage, meaning "to care for our Island Earth".
Its aim has been to spread a message about ocean conservation, sustainability and protecting indigenous culture.
"Hokule'a has sparked a reawakening of Hawaiian culture, language, identity and revitalized voyaging and navigation traditions throughout the Pacific Ocean," said the voyage organisers on their website.
Navigator Kala Baybayan Tanaka and Capt. Timi Gilliom consult a nautical
chart of Ka‘ie‘iewaho Channel on a sail from Oahu to Kauai to
commemorate the launching of Namahoe, Kauai’s first voyaging canoe, in
September. Kaipo Ki‘Aha photo
Naalehu Anthony, crewmember and chief executive director of Hawaiian media company Oiwi TV which documented the trip, told Hawaii Public Radio that wherever they docked, people greeted them with a Hawaiian "Aloha" greeting.
"One of the things I really admire about the voyage, looking back on it, is that we always asked the first nations peoples from these different places for permission to come. We never said we are coming. We said, would it be OK for us to come and honour the native people of this place," he said.
The voyage, he added, had been an "opportunity to celebrate native knowledge and look at ways that we are more common than we are different".
The 35th America’s Cup is now history and it ended, as the poet T.S. Eliot once wrote, “Not with a bang but a whimper.”
A whimper from a thoroughly defeated Oracle Team USA who simply could not rise to the occasion.
As I have always said, a little bit of extra boat speed can make you look like a tactical genius and Emirates Team New Zealand had boat speed to burn.
ETNZ could sail deeper downwind and higher upwind while maintaining the same speed as OTUSA and that, my friends, is how you win boat races.
How the team was preparing after the disappointment of 2013.
This is their story of redemption.
So let’s congratulate Peter Burling and his team.
They did a fine job and are deserved winners of the America’s Cup, but just a quick little aside.
The next time I hear a commentator refer to Mr Burling as the “young” Peter Burling there will be some blood letting.
Ferchristsake Horatio Nelson was just 20 when he took on his first command of the Royal navy.
But I digress.
Last week I wrote a piece about ETNZ secret potion being an intense National Pride, but I was wrong.
Their secret ingredient was the man not at the helm of the boat, but at the helm of the entire operation and I am talking about my old mate Grant Dalton, or Dalts as most people call him.
Photo credit Onne van der Wal.
We raced together in the 81/81 Whitbread Round the Race, not on the same boat, but all of us racing back in those days were a merry band of brothers.
Dalts was a tousled haired, mustachioed, unassuming person who was quick with a laugh and even quicker with a beer.
I had no idea that he would rise to become one of the most powerful people in sailing and I am guessing that he also had no idea how successful his career would be, but maybe I am wrong.
Dalton’s career was for a long time in the shadow of Peter Blake, the Kiwi superstar who captured the imagination of the New Zealand public by winning the Whitbread and the America’s Cup.
Blake was tall and smooth; Dalton not so much and definitely not smooth.
Blake was knighted for his contribution to sailing.
Let’s see if the Queen nods in the direction of Dalton who surely deserves it, but I think that some of his public comments over the years may disqualify him.
Dalton was never politically correct and he certainly had firm opinions on some issues.
I am thinking of one comment leveled toward the first ever all-female team to race in the Whitbread.
It was the 89/90 Whitbread when Tracy Edwards led her crew aboard Maiden.
Dalton famously stated that if an all-female team ever won a leg of the Whitbread he would shove a pineapple up his arse and walk down Queen Street, the main street in Auckland.
Edwards won the second leg of that race into Fremantle, Australia and to this day none of us is sure whether Dalton kept his word on that one or not.
At the heart of every successful effort you need strong leadership and Grant Dalton has provided the absolute best kind of leadership.
He leads from the front and inspires by example.
It took him four attempts, two as crew and two as skipper, before he won the Volvo Ocean Race, but in the 1993/94 race he dominated aboard New Zealand Endeavour winning three of the six legs and taking the overall win.
He went on to race in three more Volvo Ocean Races before hanging up his oilies and turning his eye toward the America’s Cup.
Dalton led the charge to win the Cup in San Francisco in 2013 and we all know how that ended, but what most don’t know was how close the whole operation came to closing down after that loss.
Much of their backing comes from the New Zealand government and with such a dramatic loss the NZ public were rightfully less interested in chucking piles of money their way.
But Dalton is nothing if not a scrapper.
In 2015 he chose to axe helmsman Dean Barker and replace him with Peter Burling, a move that at the time had many calling for Dalton himself to be fired but let’s admit it, in hindsight, it was pure genius.
It also didn’t help Team New Zealand when Bermuda was announced as the host of the upcoming AC. New Zealand viewed Bermuda as a commercial wasteland.
Through it all Grant Dalton managed to keep it together and the rest, as they say, is history.
So I was very happy when Emirates Team New Zealand closed out the Cup yesterday and I was even more pleased to see Dalton on board one of the most sophisticated sailboats in the world wearing a pair of flip flops, or jandals as the Kiwis like to call them.
My kind of guy and let’s hope that the Queen can forgive him for a few of his less than noble comments over the years.
