Huge waves batter distant US Army station in South Pacific, forcing evacuations

[GordMay]

Roi-Namur Island was struck by several substantial waves, on Saturday [Jan. 20/24] night. It was NOT a tsunami. The powerful waves, driven by cyclonic surges in the open sea, flooded the island, damaging buildings & infrastructure, located in the northern part of the Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands.

Operation Roi Recovery assesses damages to Kwajalein Atoll infrastructure
➥ https://www.army.mil/article/273134/...infrastructure

More about ➥ https://www.stripes.com/branches/arm...-12774157.html

Dramatic Video ➥ https://twitter.com/i/status/1749554817431675230

[TeddyDiver]

Ouch.. just thinking how to avoid all the flotsam.

[Don C L]

Amazing no one was injured!

[Ryban]

Kwajalein's highest point is 13 feet above sea level and its average elevation is 6 feet. We're going to see more and more events like this in the coming decades.

The immediate impact of sea level rise isn't a process where you slowly see the water creep up on the beach, but rather that high tide and storm events that would have previously done little damage start to encroach in places they previously didn't.

[shrspeedblade]

I visited there in the 90s- lots of fascinating Japanese bunkers, etc. from the WWII battle where the Marines took the island. Like most of the Marshalls, it's very low and flat.

I'm sure events like this are even harder on the local people in their flimsy plywood houses- one of the things that inspires me to try to make choices to lessen my environmental impact. It's tragic that our society breeds people only concerned with their own convenience.

[donradcliffe]

The Marshall Islands are in the North Pacific. So is Capitola, which also suffered recent wave damage and evacuations. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. Note the date on the picture.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

The Marshall Islands are in the North Pacific. So is Capitola, which also suffered recent wave damage and evacuations. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. Note the date on the picture.

I wonderhow all those windows survived ?

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Ryban

Kwajalein's highest point is 13 feet above sea level and its average elevation is 6 feet. We're going to see more and more events like this in the coming decades.

The immediate impact of sea level rise isn't a process where you slowly see the water creep up on the beach, but rather that high tide and storm events that would have previously done little damage start to encroach in places they previously didn't.

Int so fast there hero these events have been happening for a long time they are not a recent event just not to often a tropical cyclone comes that close to the islands.
Iirc similar events were even described in captain cooks log book in 1778 or 1779 while he was visiting the marshals. During the prior several cyclone seasons

[Ryban]

People in here quick on the denialism. I said they are happening more frequently, and will continue to, not that they haven't happened before.

I'm going to excuse myself from this debate though, as this thread will get locked. If you're curious about the data, you can read about it yourself: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazard...-sections.html

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Ryban

People in here quick on the denialism. I said they are happening more frequently, and will continue to, not that they haven't happened before.

I'm going to excuse myself from this debate though, as this thread will get locked. If you're curious about the data, you can read about it yourself: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazard...-sections.html

Actually it appears the marshals will be a go to destination in the future if GW is a reality according to this study from MIT . https://climate.mit.edu/posts/study-...yclone-hotspot

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Ryban

Kwajalein's highest point is 13 feet above sea level and its average elevation is 6 feet. We're going to see more and more events like this in the coming decades.

The immediate impact of sea level rise isn't a process where you slowly see the water creep up on the beach, but rather that high tide and storm events that would have previously done little damage start to encroach in places they previously didn't.

Indeed!

Originally Posted by Stars&Stripes

”...
Roi-Namur lies about six feet above sea level and is at growing risk of damage from sea level rise, according to a 2017 report by the U.S. Geological Survey for the DOD. Wave-driven flooding would be expected to significantly impact Roi-Namur with a roughly 15-inch rise in sea level over the level in 2017, the study found. “At this point, without active management measures, the annual amount of seawater flooded onto the island during storms will be of sufficient volume to make the groundwater non-potable year-round,” the report states. Under one model of projected sea-level rise, the island would reach that “tipping point” between 2030 and 2040.

Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/branches/arm...-12774157.html
Source - Stars and Stripes

[Ericson38]

Originally Posted by Ryban

Kwajalein's highest point is 13 feet above sea level and its average elevation is 6 feet. We're going to see more and more events like this in the coming decades.

The immediate impact of sea level rise isn't a process where you slowly see the water creep up on the beach, but rather that high tide and storm events that would have previously done little damage start to encroach in places they previously didn't.

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sl...tml?id=1612340

Closest NOAA station shows 0.51 feet per 100 years, based on over 110 years' data.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Ericson38

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sl...tml?id=1612340

Closest NOAA station shows 0.51 feet per 100 years, based on over 110 years' data.

Actually 7.87 inches per century
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sl...tml?id=1820000

[Island Time O25]

One of the survival techniques in the cyclones prone areas is to build "flimsy" structures which can be quickly and cheaply replaced using communal effort.

As far as GW hysteria is concerened, the climate goes through periodic and sometimes drastic cycles and to imagine that human gnats activity on this planet has anything more than a tiny impact in the larger scheme of things is the height of the hubris. A good volcano eruption such as Krakatoa 150 years ago can spew out more nasty stuff with more dire consequences than 100 years of industrial activities did worldwide.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

... A good volcano eruption such as Krakatoa 150 years ago can spew out more nasty stuff with more dire consequences than 100 years of industrial activities did worldwide.

Human activities emit 60 ➛ 100 times, the amount of carbon dioxide, released by volcanoes each year.

Large, violent eruptions may match the rate of human emissions, for the few hours that they last, but they are too rare and fleeting to rival humanity’s annual emissions. In fact, several individual U.S. states emit more carbon dioxide in a year, than all the volcanoes on the planet combined do.

Occasionally, volcanic eruptions are powerful enough to release carbon dioxide, at a rate that matches [or even exceeds] the global rate of human emissions, for a few hours.
For example, Gerlach estimated that the eruptions of Mount St. Helens [1980] and Pinatubo [1991] both released carbon dioxide, on a scale similar to human output, for about nine hours.
Human emissions of carbon dioxide continue day after day, month after month, year after year.

Today, rather than warming global climate, volcanic eruptions sometimes have the opposite effect. That's because carbon dioxide isn't the only thing that volcanoes inject into the atmosphere. Even small eruptions often produce volcanic ash and aerosol particles, and sulfur dioxide [SO2].
Whether from small or large eruptions, volcanic aerosols reflect sunlight back into space, cooling global climate. The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora produced enough ash and aerosols to cancel summer, in Europe and North America, in 1816.