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Part of the United States has been radically stricken from the map after an island in Hawaii was washed away by a powerful hurricane.
East Island, a distant point of gravel and sand lying at the top of a coral reef, disappeared after having this misfortune to come into contact with Hurricane Walaka, an intense storm that has swept Hawaii at the beginning of the month.
Scientists have confirmed the disappearance of the 11-acre island after comparing the satellite images of the surrounding French frigate banks, which are part of a large marine protected area located in the northwest Hawaiian Islands.
"I pronounced a big word. I had a sacred moment of sacred cow, with a little disbelief as to its disappearance, "said Chip Fletcher, a professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Hawaii. Fletcher and his colleagues were searching East Island through drone videos and taking sand and coral samples to determine the age of the island and assess their future prospects. to climate change.
"The island was probably between one and two thousand years old and we were there only in July. So it's really bad luck to lose it, "Fletcher said.
"We wanted to monitor the island and we were disappointed with his departure, but we learned that these islands are much more threatened than we thought. I thought the island would stay about a decade or two longer, but it's a lot more fragile than I thought. The top, middle and bottom are gone.
The East Island was, with about 800 meters long and 400 meters wide, the second largest island of the French frigate Shoals, an atoll located in the far west of the island. Archipelago of Hawaii. Until 1952, it housed a radar station of the US Coast Guard.
Despite its size, the island played an important role for wildlife, including the Hawaiian monk seal, a critically endangered species, a species with only 1,400 individuals, many seals raising their young in the wild. east of the island. Green sea turtles, which are also endangered, and seabirds such as albatrosses, whose young prey were often prey to tiger sharks that circled around, also depended on the island.
"The loss is a blow," Fletcher said. "We did not know that he could disappear so quickly."
If conditions line up, an atoll could still be erased by a powerful hurricane. But climate change is causing the oceans and the atmosphere to warm, making the storms more fierce, with hurricanes moving further north in the eastern latitudes of East Island.
Sea-level rise is also eroding low-lying islands, with several fragments of Pacific land having disappeared in recent years.
"The message to keep in mind is that climate change is real and is happening now," Honolulu Civilian Beat Randy Kosaki, senior official of Hawaii's memorial to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Reuters. "This is not a hoax spread in China, as some have said.
The French frigate Shoals sits in the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument, which became the largest marine reserve in the world when it was expanded by the Obama administration in 2016. The chain of coral islands, mounts -marines and shoals present, fish, birds and mammals, many of which are unique to Hawaii.
A statement by federal officials of the monument said that "East Island" appeared to be under water, while the shape of neighboring Tern Island had been modified by the hurricane.
"The co-managers are working to better understand the implications for cultural resources and wildlife, protected species and their habitat in the monument," the statement added.
"We will continue to monitor species and islands to better assess the impacts of the hurricane. Based on the data, managers will determine next steps and management actions. "
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