LONDON, 15 June 2003 — Are we all about to disappear under the sea? The Pacific nations are becoming increasingly concerned that we are. In Tuvalu, there have been reports for some time that tidal flooding is becoming more and more common and salt-water is intruding into the country’s limited arable land. Its government has asked larger countries like Australia and New Zealand to consider accepting “climate refugees” in the event that rising sea levels forces them to evacuate.
Twelve years ago, the Australian government decided to fund and install state-of-the-art tide gauges in all the Pacific island countries with which it had close links. The idea was that they would help Pacific Island nations monitor the course of sea level changes and so seek to avoid future disasters. The data from those tide gauges is currently recorded by satellite and transmitted to the national tidal facility in Adelaide, Australia.
The Pacific island nations then buy it back from the National Tidal Facility. Based on data from the last eight years, the Australian government insists there is no immediate cause for concern and that the Tuvalese people are audacious to request repatriation of their people. Patrick Nunn, Professor of Oceanic Geosciences at Suva University, finds this stance extremely suspicious. He points out that if you’re going to measure sea level change — rise or fall — you need a minimum of 50 to 80 years of data. “With only eight years of records, which is what we’ve got from Tuvalu, you can’t readily separate what we call the noise from the signal. You cannot see the actual signal of sea level rise because of the noise about the signal. And within that noise, there are periods where the sea level goes down, and there are periods where it goes up very rapidly and periods where it does nothing at all. You need more extensive data before you can identify the long-term signal of sea level change.”
Nunn believes scientists need more time period to collect data — at least 30 years: “What’s becoming increasingly clear to me, is that this is science driven not by science, but by politics,” Nunn told Arab News at his home in Suva at the end of last year. “I used to think it was simply a case of the Australian government wanting a rapid return on their investment so they could show Australian tax-payers that they were actually helping these island states.
“But now I’m starting to suspect that it’s something even deeper than that, because what the national tidal facility is basically saying is, look, we have eight years of data from Tuvalu. Then they say the sea level is falling around Tuvalu, therefore there isn’t the problem of sea level rise in the Pacific that everyone feared. Therefore we do not have to cut back on our emissions from Australian industries. And therefore Australian jobs are secure. I’m not the only person to suspect it.”
As it happens, Paani Laupepa, who works for the Ministry of the Environment in Tuvalu, has come to exactly the same conclusion. Writing in “Pacific” magazine in April 2002, he said that, in his opinion, it was in the Australian and US governments’ interests to believe that the sea level was not rising and that projections of future sea level rise by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were in fact incorrect. As a result, it was being argued that emissions of greenhouse gas from industries in Australia and the US were not going to have the deleterious effect on the atmosphere that everybody predicted, and industries could continue with their prevailing production methods.
“We in Tuvalu have a very different view,” says Laupepa. “In March 2002, we witnessed very high spring tides. In fact, local observations suggest that these were the highest we have ever experienced. For people living on a series of coral atolls this is a very serious issue. People have to wade through seawater to get to their houses. On one islet, there’s an old stone cottage built around 1903. At high tide, the seawater began to form large pools around the cottage, and then it poured through under the doors and flooded the entire floor. The fact that this old cottage was flooded for the first time suggests that it’s the highest tide we’ve experienced for a very long time, if not the highest ever.” These extraordinary observations did not match statements made by Dr. Wolfgang Scherer, of the National Tidal Facility at Flinders University in Adelaide. In fact, in the December edition of “Pacific” magazine, Scherer was quoted as saying that “the data does not support any sea-level rise at all.”
So who is right? Based on his own observations, Laupepa asked his scientists to take a close look at the data from the National Tidal Facility. He found that in March 2001, the tidal gauge in Tuvalu recorded the highest high tide since records were taken, matching local observations.
What Tuvalu is in reality experiencing is tides which rise and fall, and which continue to rise higher and higher: “The quote by Dr. Scherer is a shameful manipulation of statistics,” says Laupepa.
“Furthermore, anyone with the bare basics of scientific training would know that drawing conclusions from eight years of data is an act of scientific recklessness, bordering on gross ineptitude.” Professor Nunn is in no doubt that sea levels are rising, and that they’ve been rising for between 100 to 200 years: “A lot of my research has been looking at climate and sea level changes within the last 1,000 years in the Pacific, “ says Nunn. “The issue is what we observe — and we are observing sea level rise.”
The NTF figures make no sense to Nunn, who refers to long-term records from Honolulu, from Wellington in New Zealand, from American Samoa, and from the Marshall Islands, which all say that sea levels are rising.
The majority of environmental groups working in this region are in agreement about this too. Greenpeace South Pacific released several statements that referred to a report — “A Note on Relative Sea Level Change at Funafuti, Tuvalu” — which Australian scientist John Hunter had been asked to prepare about sea level change in the region.
For the report, Hunter used two sets of data — one from the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center (UHSLC) and the other from the Australian National Tidal Facility. His analysis indicated a rate of 0.8-1.9 between plus 0.8 and plus 1.9 mm/year relative to the land, with a 68 percent probability of the rate being between minus 1.1 and plus 2.7mm a year.
As Hunter points out, “What is a politician, manager or environmentalist to do with this range of numbers (the range of figures released by the NTF)?
The general consensus in the region is that government bodies can show people graphs and data until they’re blue in the face, but what really matters is what people are experiencing.
And clearly what’s happening on the ground, not just in Tuvalu but in every Pacific island nation, is that coastlines are being eroded at an unprecedented rate.
To confirm the evidence Nunn sees in the field, he has been doing research work with students from all the Pacific countries attending the international University of the South Pacific. Recently, they’ve collected information from elderly inhabitants from long-established settlements about how the coastline has changed since they were young. And the emerging picture is erosion — almost everywhere you look.
“It’s nothing to do with beach mining, it’s nothing to do with sand-mining from the lagoon, it’s nothing to do with artificial structures,” says Nunn. “What we’re looking at is a regional effect — and the only thing that can produce erosion across a region of north-south-windward-leeward coasts is sea level rise.”
In Yadua, a large village two hours from the city of Suva, the villagers are getting worried. Village headman Tuinayaru Baleivabea says that the villagers don’t understand that the sea level is rising, just that the village is retreating, and therefore people have to move
The coastal erosion in Yadua is obvious and alarming. Where the land has been lost by the shoreline, it looks like as if somebody has created a giant step from the serrated edge of the land straight on to the beach. A concrete seawall erected in the Seventies was quickly dismantled by waves removing the supporting material under the wall. In 1987, the huge cyclone Oscar knocked what was left of the wall down.
Now, Baleivabea asks villagers to leave their rubbish, including grass cuttings and coconut leaves, on the edge of the beach, which he believes will create a natural mesh with creepers to help block the wind and waves. As the waves dump more sediment, soft stone and coral from the nearby reef, he hopes the beach will rebuild naturally.
Several houses in Yadua have been damaged during storms. Two have been rebuilt by the government (ironically in exactly the same place), but even that influx of money for repairs has now ended. But, Baleivabea emphasizes, the cyclones continue to come: “If the cyclone is less than 60 knots, we will be OK, because parts of the beach are stable enough. But if the cyclone is 80 knots or more, it’s a big threat to the people here. People will have to lock their flats and move, or set up home somewhere else.”
Research groups coming to Yadua to learn about sea level rise have produced the most effective anti-erosion program in the village to date: An extensive mangrove-growing project, started with the help of the Japanese company OISCA — Organization for Industrial, Spiritual and Cultural Advancement. The mangroves put out roots and bind material together, which stops sand being eroded. Within ten years, the mangroves join together into dense forest, which acts as a buffer against the waves. What the Yadua villagers now want is for the government to give money to the local mangrove project.
Laupepa is adamant, however, that other countries need to accept their share of responsibility: “We will be approaching progressive members of the Australian Parliament to seek an inquiry into the operation of this institution,” he says. “This is not a matter we take lightly. Tuvalu is on the frontline of climate change, and the future of our culture and the entire nation is at stake. We cannot afford to be the victims of gross scientific manipulation.”
