Pacific Ocean level alert: rising faster than global average

(France24).- The rise in sea levels in the Pacific Ocean is exceeding the global average, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published on Tuesday, putting low-lying island states at risk.

Globally, sea level rise is accelerating as rising temperatures, caused by the continued burning of fossil fuels, melt once-mighty ice sheets, while warming oceans cause water molecules to expand.

Even compared with the global average rise of 3.4 millimetres a year over the past three decades, the WMO report showed the average annual increase was “significantly higher” in two Pacific measurement areas, north and east of Australia.

“Human activities have weakened the ocean’s ability to sustain and protect us and – through rising sea levels – are transforming a long-standing friend into a growing threat,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement to coincide with the release of the regional State of the Climate 2023 report at a forum in Tonga.

These floods have already caused an increase in the frequency of coastal flooding since 1980, with dozens of cases on islands such as the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, where previously only a few cases were recorded each year.

Tropical cyclones are sometimes the cause of these phenomena, which scientists say may also be intensifying due to climate change, as sea surface temperatures rise.

According to the WMO report, more than 34 hazards, such as storms and floods, were recorded in the Pacific region in 2023, causing more than 200 deaths, and only one-third of small island developing states had early warning systems.

A WMO spokesman said the impact of rising water levels on Pacific islands was disproportionately high, 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 United Nations Climate Change Conference in knee-deep sea water.

However, the WMO report says global increases “will continue for centuries to millennia due to continued absorption of heat from the deep ocean and loss of mass from ice sheets.”