How will the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands respond to climate change? A look at past, present, and future sea level change and storms within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
April 16, 2020
Haunani Kane, PhD, National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology at the University of Hawai'i
The future existence of low lying atoll islands is of global concern, as entire island nations and highly evolved ecosystems are projected to become uninhabitable in the next 30-50 years due to sea level rise. Despite this recognized vulnerability, most studies fail to account for the biological controls upon island resiliency. Typically, sea level research instead assumes atoll islands are static and do not recover from environmental stressors. Join Haunani Kane, PhD, National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology at the University of Hawaiʻi as she shares data from the fossil record, kaʻao (Hawaiian legends), and future climate projections that give a glimpse of how islands at Lalo respond to past, present, and future changes in sea level and storms.
This live event is an extension of the Mokupāpapa Third Thursday By The Bay lecture series.
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