A World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report released on Tuesday showed that sea levels in the Pacific Ocean are rising faster than the global average, posing a threat to low-lying island nations.
Globally, sea levels are rising rapidly as rising temperatures from the continued burning of fossil fuels melt once-mighty ice sheets, while warming oceans cause water molecules to expand.
But even compared with the global average growth rate of 3.4 millimetres per year over the past three decades, the WMO report showed that the average annual rise in two measurement areas in the Pacific, north and east of Australia, was “substantially higher”.
“Human activities have undermined the ocean’s capacity to sustain and protect us and – through sea level rise – are turning a lifelong friend into a growing threat,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement released to mark the release of the Regional Climate Report 2023 at a forum in Tonga.
Such increases have led to an increase in the frequency of coastal flooding since the 1980s, with dozens of incidents occurring in islands such as the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, which previously recorded only a handful of such cases each year.
Such events are sometimes triggered by tropical cyclones, which scientists believe may also become more intense due to climate change, as sea surface temperatures rise.
The WMO report said more than 34 hazards such as storms and floods were expected to occur in the Pacific in 2023, resulting in more than 200 deaths. Only one-third of small island developing states have early warning systems, the report said.
A World Meteorological Organization spokesperson said the impact of rising sea levels would be disproportionate on Pacific Ocean islands, as their average elevation is only one or two metres (3.3 to 6.5 feet) above sea level.
To raise awareness of the dangers, Tuvalu’s foreign minister gave a speech at the 2021 UN climate conference while standing knee-deep in seawater, making global headlines.
But the WMO report says that the Earth’s ice cover will continue to grow “over centuries to millennia due to continued absorption of heat by the deep ocean and the loss of mass of the ice sheets.”
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