Climate change expert to investigate rising sea levels in the Maldives

• Main Author: Dawson, Leigh
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: ResearchOnline@ND 2011
• Subjects: Notre Dame; Fremantle; Michael O'Leary; climate; change; Maldives; sea level; Arts and Humanities; Life Sciences; Plant Sciences; Greenland; Low Reef; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/media_release/178; http://www.nd.edu.au/news/media-releases/2011/MediaRelease_ClimateChangeMaldives.shtml

Rising sea levels as a result of global warming could seriously impact the picturesque Maldive Islands, according to University of Notre Dame Australia academic, Dr Michael O’Leary. Dr O’Leary is one of six delegates from around the world invited on a three-week expedition to the Maldives. They will investigate how the low-lying archipelago can survive a rise in sea level. He will undertake his investigation as part of REEForm, a working group established by the International Association of Geomorphologists to examine reef and reef landform responses to past, present and future environmental changes. Situated roughly 700km south west of Sri Lanka, the Maldives (consisting of more than 1000 islands) has a height elevation of just 1.5m above sea level, making it the lowest lying nation in the world. Dr O’Leary’s research background is in using past sea levels as a proxy to understand how the polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have waxed and waned with changing temperatures, causing the oceans to increase and decrease their volume. While completing his PhD studies in the reconstruction of past sea levels off the Western Australian coast, Dr O’Leary found that in the last 100-1000 years the earth had seen fluctuations in sea level on the order of 2m to 6m. If this was the case today, the whole of the Maldives could become submerged. Unlike Australia where, if sea levels were to rise in excess of 2m, its population could move inland, the 400,000 people living in the Maldives would have nowhere to retreat. “What we are trying to understand is whether coral reefs and reef islands will keep up, catch up, or simply give up in response to rising sea levels,” Dr O’Leary said. “In order to do this we need to understand how these low reef islands evolved over the last 10,000 years to changing environmental states and how they might respond to any possible future environmental changes. “If you raise sea level, yes, you may submerge the island, but potentially you may create an environment where sea level constrained ...