Climate Will Leave Many Pacific Islands Uninhabitable by 2065: Study

"As sea level rises, waves will more frequently wash over many of the atolls—and the U.S. military facilities built there—damaging water supplies and infrastructure. "

"Long before the Pacific Ocean subsumes thousands of low-lying islands, waves will begin washing over them frequently enough to ruin groundwater supplies and damage crops and fragile infrastructure. A new report says this likely will render many coral atolls uninhabitable within decades—before 2030 in a worst case scenario and by 2065 in a more optimistic one.

"When you're walking around the islands and you see kids there, you realize this isn't something that's next generation or the generation after that," said Curt Storlazzi, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the study's lead author. "If these scenarios play out, we're talking about those kids' generation."

Some of these reef-lined islands are home to hundreds of thousands of people and American military sites."

Nicholas Kusnetz reports for InsideClimate News April 25, 2018.