AWASH IN A RISING SEA - How global warming is overwhelming the islands of the tropical Pacific - Cover Story

International Wildlife, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Curtis A. Moore

Higher and hotter seas are taking their toll in other places as well: In the Marshall Islands, there have been surges over seawalls, bridges and roads (on Majuro Island, the airport flooded). In the Federated States of Micronesia, 40 families ran out of water.

In Tuvalu--which consists of nine coral atolls strung over 360 miles-- seven families have already fled for a higher island, Niue. In low- lying areas, the country's water is so salty that many farmers now grow taro in tin-lined containers or concrete-lined planting beds. The future looks so bleak that Tuvalans have appealed to Australia and New Zealand to grant them permanent residence if their islands are submerged.

On the higher islands, the damage to crops has been of a different sort. In 1998, drought killed two-thirds of Fiji's cane crop and halved Tonga's squash production. Food and water shortages have become so severe and frequent in Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and other areas that it is now almost routine for France, Australia or the United States to ship in emergency relief supplies. Australia recently rushed US$15 million in food into regions of Papua New Guinea where residents were starving.

Other plant and animal life also is being altered. Since 1990, malaria has appeared above 2,000 meters (just over 6,500 feet) in Papua New Guinea where previously it was too cold for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to survive. In 2001 in French Polynesia, roughly 31,000 cases of dengue fever were reported, resulting in the hospitalization of 1,040 and the deaths of 7 children. "Warming and the growing intensity of extreme weather events have contributed to the increased severity of dengue fever outbreaks in Fiji, Samoa and other parts of the world," says Dr. Paul R. Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

The disruptions extend into the oceans themselves. Warmer waters cause coral to "bleach," or turn white, when they expel the tiny algae that provide them color and food. This is the first step in a process that can lead to mass mortality of the vital coral colonies that not only harbor fish and other food, but literally build the islands over eons. In 1998, huge swathes of the coral at Rangiroa in French Polynesia died when sea temperatures that had previously averaged about 28 degrees C (82 F) soared to sustained levels of 33 to 34 degrees C (91 to 93 F).

Before 1980, bleaching was limited to a few small areas clearly affected by extreme, local stress, according to the Global Coral Reef Alliance. Now, however, bleaching events have hit throughout the Pacific, often with devastating consequences. In Fiji, for example, 65 percent of the reefs have been struck and 15 percent are now dead. Specific bleachings have occurred in the Cook Islands in 1994, Palau in 1998 and Fiji in 2000. The culprit, according to scientific experts, including Peter Mumby of the Department of Marine Sciences at England's University of Newcastle upon Tyne, is global warming.