More Research is Needed, Especially on a Local Scale.
Coastal areas will likely experience major changes in sea levels this century due to climate change. The shifts, however, will be anything but uniform. NASA research shows that some coasts are experiencing sea level rise significantly faster than the global average of 3.27 millimeters (about 1/8 of an inch) per year, while other areas are experiencing slower rates of rise and even falling sea levels.
“It would be nice if we could say we can predict exactly how a given island or island chain will react to rising sea levels or some other environmental change, but we’re simply not there yet for most islands, especially for many tropical islands where research dollars are scarce. We’re still a long way from being able to accurately model how an individual island will change as a result of climate change or even simple development pressure,” said Stutz.
Details of the Study:
Title of the Study: “Open-Ocean Barrier Islands: Global Influence of Climatic, Oceanographic, and Depositional Settings”
Authors: Matthew L. Stutz and Orrin H. Pilkey
Published in ‘Journal of Coastal Research’, Volume 27, Issue 2: pp. 207–222; doi: 10.2112/09-1190.1
Check the following link to read/download the Full Study:
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/09-1190.1
Source: NASA. Written by Adam Voiland, NASA’s Earth Science News Team.
