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Rising Sea Levels Uncover Japanese War Dead In Marshall Islands
An anonymous reader writes "The foreign minister of the Marshall Islands says that, 'even the dead are affected' by climate change. From the article: 'Speaking at UN climate talks in Bonn, the Island's foreign minister said that high tides had exposed one grave with 26 dead. The minister said the bones were most likely those of Japanese troops. Driven by global warming, waters in this part of the Pacific have risen faster than the global average. With a high point just two metres above the waters, the Marshall Islands are one of the most vulnerable locations to changes in sea level.'"
Don't follow the lights!
Ezekiel 23:20
Welcome to the world where people believe scientific papers rather than press releases from coal companies.
Hard to believe that a couple inches makes all that much difference. Yea, I read the article - the Marshall Islands are low and flat. But I've also seen the open Pacific Ocean, where 20 foot waves are normal. I assume bones have been washing up every year since the war; Japan lost over 17,000 soldiers during the four month battle for the two islands.
Since all you've got is a sarcastic reply that doesn't actually address the question, I'll help.
Water pressure only causes perfect leveling to human eyes, but as the transmission distance of that pressure increases, the effects of random interference, and natural obstacles becomes the dominant ones. This manifests most discernably in the relatively huge sea level differences between the pacific side the Panama canal and the Atlantic side.
Now as to what mechanisms allow changes to be different, instead of just static value, it gets a little bit beyond my comprehension as to the exact mechanisms, but I believe it might have to do with where thermal expansion occurs(the deepest parts of the ocean most) and where land ice is melting to.
... I thought total it was couple centimeters.... which shouldn't be enough to uncover anything but sand crabs...
Are we sure this isn't erosion? Because that seems far more likely then sea levels changing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Press releases from coal companies never really consist of "evidence against" though. They're usually just "rhetoric against". And they've discovered that's not really as necessary now that they've managed to instill denying it as a core value of one political party. People will assert counter-factual things because that's far easier than accepting the idea of previously being wrong.
The really dumb thing is we're doing it all to ourselves, and there's not even much of a conspiracy to manipulate us anymore.
Dr Murray Ford, from the University of Auckland, has been comparing aerial photographs of the islands taken by the United States military during World War II with photographs taken in the 1970s and in recent years. He found that many islands are getting larger and that the shrinking shoreline along coastal villages has largely been caused by commercial development, building of seawalls and land reclamation.
Most of the Japanese troops stationed in the Marshall Islands back in WW II were mostly from Taiwan and Korea as most of the Japanese troops were deployed in China
There are other forces involved.. currents, water densities due to fresh water inflows, tides, topography, etc.. I do not personally understand these forces involved, I am just listing out what I think could be factors... but for instance the pacific side of the panama canal is widely known to be 8 inches higher than the atlantic side. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal)
- Tempestdata
This is the reason we can't have a real conversation about Global Warming. It is a fact that islands sink. Little islands are commonly sinking slowly back into the ocean. This is long established, proved, and accepted. Erosion near cost lines is also well understood and a likely explanation. However, a bunch of "journalists" are using this story to promote Global Warming without ever even mentioning the most likely explanation. The resulting story gets promulgated across the internet because if fits a theme, that is popular and the media likes. This is simply unacceptable from a side that likes to claim "science" at every turn.
I just want to point out that many people learn at an early age that the Panama canal uses locks to raise and lower ships passing through, and that these are absolutely necessary because the sea levels on the two ends are different.
WTF? You make this statement in a post where you're trying to make someone else seem uneducated and unknowledgeable? The sea levels on the two ends are not different. They are the same. The locks are there because the water in the canal comes from rivers that feed into it and the canal is not at sea level the whole way across-- it rises to cross the terrain. Incoming river water fills the locks to raise the ships and it is released when the locks are drained to lower the ships.
Since the melting Greenland ice is mostly above ground, the melt causes the mass of Greenland to reduce. This reduced mass produces less gravitational effect on the surrounding ocean. Consequently, as Greenland ice melts, the sea level nearest the Greenland melt will actually drop, even as more volume is added to the ocean from this particular melt. It is basic physics, and contributions to sea level from various reducing ice masses can and has been estimated. Europe actually is at somewhat less risk of sea level rise from such gravitational changes than the South pacific or the US east coast. That is why Florida is at increased risk, while Italy, not so much.