Modelling the Response of Atoll Reef Islands to Multi-Millennial Sea Level Rise from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Coming 10kyr: the Case of Mururoa Atoll (Tuamotu, French Polynesia)

A review of estimating population exposure to sea-level rise and the relevance for migration

“…Estimates of the impact of SLR are generally limited to the 21st century (Nicholls et al 1999 , Nicholls 2004 , Pardaens et al 2011 , Hinkel et al 2014 ), perhaps due to the time horizon of socioeconomic development and planning and the neatness of 2100 as an event horizon (Marzeion and Levermann 2014 ). But given current emission trajectories, SLR will continue over several centuries (Nicholls and Cazenave 2010 , Clark et al 2016 , Le Cozannet et al 2018 ). Brown et al ( 2018 ) produce estimates to the year 2300, and project that the proportion of global population exposed to SLR in 2300 is 1.5% for an aggressive mitigation scenario and 5.4% for a non-mitigation scenario (assuming no population growth after 2100).…”

Islander migrations and the oceans: From hopes to fears?

“…Many islands are accreting horizontally or otherwise changing shape without loss of land, while others are diminishing in size, although some erosion is often attributed to local human action rather than to climate change (Biribo & Woodroffe, 2013;Connell, 2016). Under ice sheet collapse, cities, islands, and coastlines would be likely to disappear underwater after the year 2100, leading to mass migration, although the impacts would extend through several centuries and some modelling suggests that low-lying islands might disappear only in highly extreme scenarios (Le Cozannet et al, 2018). Then, over millennia, influences start to be felt from the Earth's orbital cycles which significantly affect the planet's temperature (Dolan et al, 2011;Hays et al, 1976).…”