Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls
The central Pacific Ocean with its many low lying islands and atolls is under threat from sea level rise and increased storm activity. Here, we illustrate how increasing frequency and severity of large scale storm events associated with global climate change may be particularly profound at the local...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3909279 2023-05-15T18:24:50+02:00 Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls Gardner, Jonathan P. A. Garton, David W. Collen, John D. Zwartz, Daniel 2014-01-31 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909279 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24498232 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087971 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909279 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24498232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087971 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2014 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087971 2014-02-09T01:41:22Z The central Pacific Ocean with its many low lying islands and atolls is under threat from sea level rise and increased storm activity. Here, we illustrate how increasing frequency and severity of large scale storm events associated with global climate change may be particularly profound at the local scale for human populations that rely on lagoon systems for provision of a variety of goods and services. In August 2011 a storm originating in the Southern Ocean caused a large amplitude ocean swell to move northward through the Pacific Ocean. Its arrival at Palmyra Atoll coincided with transient elevated sea surface height and triggered turnover of the lagoon water column. This storm-induced change to the lagoon reflects long distance connectivity with propagated wave energy from the Southern Ocean and illustrates the increasing threats generated by climate change that are faced by human populations on most low-lying Pacific islands and atolls. Text Southern Ocean PubMed Central (PMC) Pacific Southern Ocean PLoS ONE 9 1 e87971 |
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Research Article Gardner, Jonathan P. A. Garton, David W. Collen, John D. Zwartz, Daniel Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
The central Pacific Ocean with its many low lying islands and atolls is under threat from sea level rise and increased storm activity. Here, we illustrate how increasing frequency and severity of large scale storm events associated with global climate change may be particularly profound at the local scale for human populations that rely on lagoon systems for provision of a variety of goods and services. In August 2011 a storm originating in the Southern Ocean caused a large amplitude ocean swell to move northward through the Pacific Ocean. Its arrival at Palmyra Atoll coincided with transient elevated sea surface height and triggered turnover of the lagoon water column. This storm-induced change to the lagoon reflects long distance connectivity with propagated wave energy from the Southern Ocean and illustrates the increasing threats generated by climate change that are faced by human populations on most low-lying Pacific islands and atolls. |
format |
Text |
author |
Gardner, Jonathan P. A. Garton, David W. Collen, John D. Zwartz, Daniel |
author_facet |
Gardner, Jonathan P. A. Garton, David W. Collen, John D. Zwartz, Daniel |
author_sort |
Gardner, Jonathan P. A. |
title |
Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls |
title_short |
Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls |
title_full |
Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls |
title_fullStr |
Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls |
title_full_unstemmed |
Distant Storms as Drivers of Environmental Change at Pacific Atolls |
title_sort |
distant storms as drivers of environmental change at pacific atolls |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909279 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24498232 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087971 |
geographic |
Pacific Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Pacific Southern Ocean |
genre |
Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909279 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24498232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087971 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087971 |
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PLoS ONE |
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9 |
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e87971 |
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