Hawaii faces rare threat from major hurricane – Pacific waters around the islands are about 1°C warmer than usual

By Brian Resnick 22 August 2018 (Vox) – The state of Hawaii is facing a rare threat: A Category 4 hurricane is moving toward it, with hurricane watches and warnings in effect for most of the islands.The state of Hawaii is facing a rare threat: A Category 4 hurricane is moving toward it, with hurricane […]

Video: Albatrosses suffer agonizing deaths from ingested plastic

By Matthew Turner 21 June 2018 (Greener Ideal) – If images and videos of whales, dolphins, fish, seals, turtles, and other marine life consuming plastic wasn’t enough to make us feel sick to our own stomachs, we humans have another equally disturbing reality to contend with.Birds are eating it too.The messages from both World Environment […]

Easter Island is eroding as sea level rises – “I once swam on Ovahe Beach and the sand seemed to go on for miles. Now, it’s all stone.”

By Nicholas Casey; photographs by Josh Haner 20 July 2018 HANGA ROA, Easter Island (The New York Times) – The human bones lay baking in the sun. It wasn’t the first time Hetereki Huke had stumbled upon an open grave like this one. For years, the swelling waves had broken open platform after platform containing […]

Single-use plastic has reached the world’s deepest ocean trench

18 April 2018 (UNEP) – A new article, Human footprint in the abyss: 30 year records of deep-sea plastic debris, reveals human activities are affecting the deepest part of the ocean, more than 1000km from the mainland.Plastic pollution is emerging as one of the most serious threats to ocean ecosystems. World leaders, scientists and communities […]

A Hawaiian island got about 50 inches of rain in 24 hours. Scientists warn it’s a sign of the future – “Our communities are scaled and built for a climate that no longer exists”

By Heidi Chang 28 April 2018 (Los Angeles Times) – Since the 1940s, the Hawaiian island of Kauai has endured two tsunamis and two hurricanes, but locals say they have never experienced anything like the thunderstorm that drenched the island this month. “The rain gauge in Hanalei broke at 28 inches within 24 hours,” said […]

Photo gallery: The uninhabited island that’s home to 37 million pieces of trash

By Melia Robinson 22 April 2018 (Busniess Insider) – A small island smack in the middle of the South Pacific has never been inhabited by people — and yet, its white sand beaches are home to more than 37 million pieces of junk.Every day on Henderson Island — one of the most remote places on […]

Great pacific garbage patch growing exponentially – “The amount of hazardous microplastics is set to increase more than tenfold, if left to fragment”

Delft, the Netherlands, 22 March 2018 (The Ocean Cleanup) – 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing 80,000 metric tons are currently afloat in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – and it is rapidly getting worse. These are the main conclusions of a three year mapping effort conducted by an international team […]

Historic rain inundates Kauai, cutting off Hawaii residents and tourists with floods and mudslides– “This has been the worst flood event I’ve ever seen my 49 years here on Hanalei”

By John Hopewell 17 April 2018 (The Washington Post) – A historic torrent of rain pounded the Hawaiian island of Kauai this weekend, with more than two feet of rain lashing the tropical paradise in 24 hours. According to the National Weather Service in Honolulu, the rain gauge in the town of Hanalei collected 27.52 […]

Graph of the Day: Global map of changes in sea surface height, 1992-2014

By Katie Weeman and Patrick Lynch; Edited by Mike Carlowicz 20 February 2018 (NASA) – Global sea level rise has been accelerating in recent decades, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. This acceleration has been driven mainly by increased ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and […]

Tonga crops wiped out by Cyclone Gita, the strongest storm to hit Tonga in the modern record

By Mitch McCann 18 February 2018 (Newshub) – A week ago, Tongans were bracing themselves for what was to be the most destructive cyclone in the island’s history.But amid concerns around health and housing, officials now fear for the country’s agricultural sector, which took a massive hit during the storm.David Soaki has farmed his land […]

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