Pacific Ocean

Rising Sea Levels

Global warming and climate change pose many real threats to the Pacific Ocean. The major focus of much attention around the world has been on the rising water levels, which is likely to inundate many of the low-lying Pacific Islands. Independent countries such as Fiji, Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, and Tuvalu risk losing the vast majority of their land if the rising world temperature continues to raise the water level of the ocean. Atolls in French Polynesia and in Wallis and Futuna are also under threat. In addition to those places, all the countries in the Pacific have an increased risk of flooding, which could lead to permanent soil loss, as well as an increased risk of the prevalence of insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever as mosquitoes find further breeding grounds. The rising sea levels also threaten mangrove swamps in many areas, including off the northeastern coast of Australia, and in many Pacific Islands, with 13 percent of the worlds mangrove swamps at risk of being lost.

For this reason, many of the countries in the Pacific have been at the forefront of urging countries around the word to embrace the Kyoto Protocol and limit carbon dioxide emissions. The Republic of Nauru, the country with the highest per capita rate of carbon dioxide emissions in the Pacific, went as far as adding a long addenda to the Kyoto Protocol, arguing that it did not feel that the protocol went far enough. Two U.S. territories in the Pacific, Guam and American Samoa, have considerable carbon dioxide emissions. The Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu have, respectively, the lowest rates of carbon dioxide emissions in the Pacific, at rates similar to that of many African countries.

Changes to Marine Life

Other problems in the Pacific Ocean regarding global warming focus on the marine flora and fauna. The area most dramatically affected has been the bleaching of coral reefs around the Pacific, with studies by the International Ocean Institute of the University [Page 772]of the South Pacific in Fiji conducting surveys of coral reefs in the southwest Pacific as part of the International Coral Reef Initiative. In many cases, the damage to coral reefs has come from overpopulation, and through overexploitation through tourism, but even many reefs located in remote parts of the Pacific have experienced bleaching, showing that the damage can be ascribed as much to global warming as to other problems.

Reefs in Fiji, in the Pacific Ocean. Global warming and climate change many cause a rise in sea level.

As well as coral reefs, there have been significant changes to the marine life, especially the fish in the Pacific. The most dramatic changes have been the reduction in the diversity offish shoals, as well as the decline in the number of fish, the latter probably as much from overfishing as from global warming. However, there still remain large numbers of tuna fish and also some cluepoids in the central part of the Pacific Ocean, as well as sardines and jack mackerel along the coast of Chile, anchovy off the coast of Ecuador and Peru, mackerel and Saury off the Pacific coasts of Mexico and the United States, and sardine and salmon off the Pacific coast of Canada.

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