Going, going, gone. Five of the Solomon Islands have been swallowed whole by rising sea levels, offering a glimpse into the future of other low-lying nations.

Sea levels in the Solomon Islands have been climbing by 7 millimetres per year over the last two decades, due to a double whammy of global warming and stronger trade winds.

“It’s a perfect storm,” says Simon Albert at the University of Queensland in Australia. “There’s the background level of global sea level rise, and then the added pressure of a natural trade wind cycle that has been physically pushing water into the Western Pacific.”

Albert and his colleagues analysed aerial and satellite images from 1947 to 2014, focusing on 33 reef islands in the Solomons. Five islands present in 1947, ranging in size from 1 to 5 hectares, had disappeared by 2014 (Environmental Research Letters, doi.org/bg54). Another six had shrunk by 20 to 62 per cent, confirming reports of locals. The most populated of these, Nuatambu Island, is home to 25 families, who have witnessed 11 houses wash into the sea since 2011.

The global rate of sea level rise is 3 mm per year, but is likely to accelerate to 7 mm by the end of the century, as rising temperatures melt ice sheets and cause thermal expansion of the oceans, Albert says.

“All the projections show that in the second half of the century, the rest of the globe will reach the rate of sea level rise that the Solomon Islands is currently experiencing,” he says. (New Scientist)

At the place in the Florida Keys I know well, the sea level is visibly rising.  You can see the difference in the high tides and where the water reaches..  The strange thing is that, talking to local people ( or the few we know), nobody is bothered, or they are in denial.  Or they think it won’t affect them at their age  – whatever.   I’m personally glad I don’t own property down there.

Whenever I think of this subject I wonder why no one will discuss human population, whose huge increase is driving so many environmental problems.