The debate

The debate surrounding the future of low lying coral island nations does not centre on whether or not sea level is rising but on how much of this rise is man-made and how much is natural as well as whether these coral islands can react to the increase. According to Webb (2010, doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.05.003) coral islands can react to sea-level rise through growth and accretion of material. This seminal article goes on to show that in 43% of 27 investigated islands the net land area had increased over recent decades, only 14% had in fact reduced in area, seemingly discrediting popular ideas of shore line erosion on pacific coral islands. Webb produced a presentation which can be found at: http://ftp.grida.no/poussart/Steph/ in which he shows how he used satellite imagery to map shore line movement. The most telling page of which can be seen below:

However, many have rejected this investigation, citing conclusions within the paper which state that ‘these low-lying atolls remain immediately and extremely vulnerable to inundation or sea water flooding.’ Confusion around sea level rise helps to encourage people to take ‘sides’ in the debate. The Sea Level Rise Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to raising the 'global awareness' of the destructive impacts of sea level rise on low lying coral island nations. Its blog, found at: http://sealevelrise.blogspot.com/ is a regularly updated feed on the current impacts of sea level rise upon coral islands. Often it simply cites poor scientifically ungrounded newspaper articles as fact, resulting in negative comments about the usefulness of the foundation.

The scientific community seems to have changed its general opinion on the short-medium term future of atolls over the past two decades. As the next post will show an early pessimism which has been replaced by more optimisim through investigation.