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A powerful hurricane in the eastern Pacific, took away an 11-acre island in the French Shoals frigates, which is part of a national monument located in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Approximately half a mile long and 400 feet wide, East Island was the second largest islet of the French Shoals frigate – an atoll about 550 miles northwest of Honolulu – and critical habitat for the Critical hazard The Hawaiian monk seal, the endangered Hawaiian green turtle and several species of seabirds.
The dramatic disappearing act of the island was first reported by Honolulu Civil Beat and confirmed by HuffPost. The satellite images distributed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service show the spit of white sand almost entirely erased, scattered on the reef to the north. The US Fish and Wildlife Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chip Fletcher / Facebook
The East Island was destroyed by the storm surge of Hurricane Walaka, which raged in the northwest Hawaiian Islands in the form of a powerful category 3 storm that month. Seven researchers, three of whom are studying green turtles at East Island, have been forced to evacuate French frigate shoals Before the storm.
Charles Littnan, Director of the Protected Species Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told HuffPost It will probably take years to understand what loss of the island means for these species at risk.
The main concern, he said, is the persistent loss of habitat, which has been identified as a significant threat to the monk seal and green turtles. The nearby Trig Island area was also lost under the surface this year, not because of a storm, but because of the strong waves.
"These little sandy islets are really going to struggle to persist" in a warming world with rising seas, Littnan said. "This event confronts us with what could be the future."
The French Frigate Banks are nesting grounds for 96 percent of the Hawaiian sea turtle population, and about half lay eggs at East Island. Historically, it has been the "most important" nesting site for turtles, he said.
All the nesting females were gone by the time Walaka hit. The storm therefore probably had little or no impact on the adult population. But NOAA scientists estimate that 19% of this year's nests in East Island have not yet hatched and have been washed away by the storm. And 20% of turtle nests on the neighboring island of Tern, the largest island of the French frigate, have been lost.
The island was also a critical habitat for the Hawaiian monk seal, one of the most endangered marine mammals on the planet, protected by the federal government. About 80% of the population of just over 1,400 seals lives in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, an isolated archipelago surrounded by the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument.
In a typical year, 30% of baby monk seals are born in East Island. In 2018, 12 puppies were born in the area and NOAA said that she thought all but one had been weaned before the storm.
Littnan said that monk seals are known to move in the water to resist storms, but scientists will not know if there is significant mortality before they can return to the area to study the population. next year.
Athline Clark, NOAA director for Papahanaumokuakea, described the satellite images as "surprising" and said that although the long-term implications are unclear, the loss of the island will have important effects on future cycles nesting and calving.
Before disappearing, the East and Trig Islands accounted for 60% of monk seal pups born in Frigate Shoals, according to NOAA.
Chip Fletcher, associate dean at the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences at the University of Hawaii, told HuffPost that after a first moment of "sacred shit" he had realized that the disappearance of the island had a meaning.
"This is not surprising considering the bad fate of a hurricane in the area. Rising sea levels are already considered a backward stressor for these ecosystems, "he said. "The likelihood of such events increases with climate change."
This month, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has issued an alarm call regarding threats who weigh on the world. According to the IPCC, failure to rethink the global economy and limit carbon emissions would have devastating, perhaps irreversible, effects.
The scientific community – including experts at NOAA – has long been warning that anthropogenic climate change influences extreme weather events. The 2015 National Climate Assessment concluded that "Hurricane intensity and precipitation expected to increase as climate continues to warm. "
Phil Klotzbach, hurricane expert at Colorado State University, said the central Pacific is an area in which many models predict that climate change will trigger more frequent and more violent hurricanes. He added that Walaka was rapidly escalating to an "impressive rate", rising from a tropical storm with winds of 40 mph to a major hurricane with winds of 120 mph in just 30 hours.
After reaching Category 5, he weakened heading north towards the National Monument.
"The total loss of the island is very impressive, "said Klotzbach after viewing the photos.
According to Littnan, NOAA scientists are waiting for all the islets of the French frigate to be completely swept away by the storm surge. It is not known if others have suffered significant damage.
We do not know if East Island will come back. An island called Whale-Skate Island, once an important habitat for monk seals of Hawaii, disappeared from the shoals of the French frigate in the 1990s and did not reappear.
Clark, Fletcher and Littnan said scientists are already studying what can be done to intervene to protect these vulnerable habitats and increase the resilience of the affected species. These efforts could include pumping sand over the surface of the ocean to restore the islets.
"We will have to find some really creative ways to help these species survive," said Littnan.
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