The South Pacific island chain of Vanuatu is a kind of canary in the coalmine for global warming. A settlement on Vanuatu's Tegua Island has already had to be relocated due to sea level rise. (See also here.) The problem was that with ever rising seas, low lying islands--and those living there--are subject to ever higher surges during storms. Eventually, the assault from the ocean becomes too much and you have to move.
In this context, Vanuatu may get a test with cyclone Becky, whose projected path is shown above (courtesy of the RMSC-Nadi Tropical Cyclone Warning Center). So far Becky is just a Category 1 hurricane offshore, but it's expected to steadily intensify as it rakes Vanuatu's islands.
That can't be good...
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This is a huge hurricane/typhoon heading quickly, and imminently, towards taiwan.
The storm itself is roughly as wide as the island nation is long, so very little will be left unaffected.
The storm is at the very high end of the range of storms in size, strength, etc. It is currently equivalent…
On with the boring. Disclaimer: this is nit-picking, for the question "is Gore accurate?". On the wider issue, I'm with the judge and with RC: Gore is basically correct. First off, its not really Tuvalua, its vaguer: "that's why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New…
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Human caused greenhouse gas pollution is heating the Earth and causing the planet’s polar ice caps and other glacial ice to melt. This, along with simply heating the ocean, has caused measurable sea level rise. Even more worrisome is this: the current elevated level of CO2 in the atmosphere was…
Can you explain this in a bit more detail? The ever reliable Wikipedia says that sea levels have risen by 3 mm since 1900, and you say that questions remain about the link between global warming and more frequent/stronger storms, so why have people already started evacuating?
OK disregard that question, 3 mm/y since 1900 is a bit more significant.
What a bizarre track! And it exposes most of the islands to the worst quadrant, too.
Is it any coincidence that the hurricane track seems to follow the path of the islands? I profess no information of hurricane physics.
Man, my experience is that hurricane tracks can do pretty much *anything,* depending entirely on the environment, which is to say, the steering currents.