WEBVTT

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(speaks foreign language)

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<v ->Aloha kākou, aloha everyone.</v>

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Welcome to our office

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of National Marine Sanctuaries webinar series

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and our third Thursday webinar series

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for Mokupāpapa Discovery Center in Hilo.

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We have a great talk for you today on climate change

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and how it's impacting Papahānaumokuākea.

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But before we get started just quickly,

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if you're having problems with your audio,

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nine times out of ten, it's the audio output features,

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input output features

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that you have set up in your control panel.

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So for this webinar, on the right hand side,

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there's a GoToWebinar control panel.

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There's a little audio tab in there.

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Just make sure that your input and output

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are set to whatever you're using,

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whether it's speakers, whether it's internal audio,

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or like in my case, my headphones.

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So that's usually where people have problems.

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Also, if you have questions during this presentation,

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please type them into the question tab

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on that same control panel.

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And also we're going to be posting a lot of resources

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and other things in the chat.

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And if you have any technical problems,

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please post them in the questions or the chat

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and we're monitoring that

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and we'll see if we can help you to resolve that

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during the broadcast.

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So again, thank you for joining us and we will get started.

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So before we actually get into the presentation,

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it's customary in Hawaiʻi to open things with protocol.

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And with this, we have a wonderful name song or chant,

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that was written for Papahānaumokuākea

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and we're going to have our wonderful Malia Evans

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present this to you.

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So I'm gonna turn it over to Malia

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and turn off my webcam and she will turn hers on

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and over to you, Malia.

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<v ->All right, aloha mai kākou.</v>

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Welcome to all of you, thank you for joining us.

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So I'm gonna set the space for the giving

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and the receiving of information and knowledge,

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and hopefully by listening to the chant

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and viewing the images,

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you will understand why Papahānaumokuākea

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is such a sacred place and so worthy of protection.

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So I'm gonna turn off my camera and I will do the Oli.

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(chanting in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian lanuage)

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<v ->Wonderful, mahalo Malia.</v>

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And so before we get started,

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just a little bit about our program.

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So the office, NOAA's office of National Marine Sanctuaries

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has 15 national marine sanctuaries across the country

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and in the Pacific.

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We have sites such as Stellwagen Bank,

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which protects a huge bank habitat

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off the northeast of the US,

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Florida Keys down in the Gulf, between the Gulf of Mexico

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and the Atlantic.

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Flower Garden Banks, which was recently expanded

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in the Gulf of Mexico.

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A couple of new sites.

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One is Mallows Bay-Potomac River

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and also Wisconsin Shipwreck site.

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So those are just designated as of this year.

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So the program is expanding and protecting new areas.

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On the West Coast, we have Olympic Coast

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and four sites in California.

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And as you move down into Hawaiʻi,

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we have Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale

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national marine sanctuary here in Hawaiʻi

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and also Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

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And down south,

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we have National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa

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and also Rose Atoll Marine National Monument.

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So our site has 15 national marine sanctuary sites

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and two marine national monuments,

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protecting some of the most unique habitats

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and bio for their biodiversity research interests

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and many other special kind of system of underwater parks.

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But we work for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

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We're the world's largest fully protected area,

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582,000 square miles,

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so that's about 1.5 million kilometers,

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for many of our international participants

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that are joining us today.

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And it's the most remote part

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of the most remote archipelago on earth,

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stretching over 1400 miles across the Pacific Ocean.

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And if you were to lay it over the United States,

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you'd see a cover area from about New Orleans to Las Vegas.

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So quite a vast area is the entire Hawaiian Archipelago.

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Today our webinar hosts are myself, Andy Collins.

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I'm the Education Coordinator

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for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

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And as you saw earlier,

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Malia Evans who's our

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Education and Native Hawaiian Outreach Program Coordinator

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and works as partner

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with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

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And also Justin Umholtz who's our education coordinator.

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And all three of us work over at wonderful facility in Hilo

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our Mokupāpapa Discovery Center right on Bayfront in Hilo.

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Unfortunately, we've been closed due to COVID

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and trying to protect ourselves and our guests.

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So we've been doing a lot of these online programs,

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but we hope to reopen our facility soon.

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And if you do get over to Hilo, please join us.

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We are open Tuesday through Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

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So hopefully we will all get through this safely

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and we'll be able to reopen and greet our guests once again.

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But today we have a very great, awesome presenter for you,

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Dr. Dan A. Polhemus.

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He is the manager of US Fish and Wildlife Service

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for the Aquatic Ecosystem Conservation

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and Environmental Contaminants Program

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for the Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Service Office.

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And he's held that position since 2010.

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He's also an affiliate faculty position

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at the University of Hawaiʻi

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and research associate appointments

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at Bishop Museum in Honolulu

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and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

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Dan was born in California and grew up in Denver, Colorado,

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receiving a BS from Colorado State University in 1980

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and a PhD from the University of Utah in 1984.

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Following this, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship

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at the Smithsonian Institution from 1988 to '90.

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Worked as an entomologist for the Bishop Museum in Honolulu

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from '91 to '97,

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returned to the Smithsonian as a research biologist

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from '97 to 2005, and eventually returned to Hawaiʻi

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to administer our Division of Aquatic Resources

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from 2005 to 2010.

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He's conducted extensive field work

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in freshwater and nearshore marine ecosystems

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throughout the Indo-Pacific,

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including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands,

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Fiji, Australia, French Polynesia, East Timor and Madagascar

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with his most recent international work

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involving protected area planning in the Maldive Islands,

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impact assessments for the Mekong River dams,

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evaluation of biodiversity conservation funding needs

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in Papua New Guinea.

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He's also the author of 218 peer-reviewed

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scientific publications, two books

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and numerous agency reports,

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including climate change

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vulnerability assessment for Papahānaumokuākea.

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So please, with great honor, please welcome Dan.

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And you can turn on your webcam.

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I'm gonna turn over the presenter to you, my friend,

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and you can take it away.

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<v ->All right. I presume everybody</v>

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can see my screen and hear me.

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So at this point.

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<v ->I think you need to share your screen one more time.</v>

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<v ->Oh, share my screen, how's that?</v>

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<v ->There we go, that's it.</v>

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<v ->Are we good, all right.</v>

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Then we'll get started.

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Today I'm going to talk about

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how the world does not stand still,

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how we're trying to understand

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the dynamics of climate change in Papahānaumokuākea

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and try to manage for it.

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And I've got to make sure I understand how

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to advance things here, here we go.

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Okay, first of all, the place.

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Andy provided you a nice introduction actually

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to where it is and what it is.

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It's the Northwestern two-thirds of the Hawaiian islands,

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essentially the forgotten part of the archipelago,

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where almost nobody lives.

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It's got a long history of protection.

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The islands themselves were designated

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as National Wildlife Refuges

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by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903

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so over 100 years ago.

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The surrounding waters were gradually

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incrementally protected in various ways

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by presidents, Clinton, Bush number two, and Obama,

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most recently by Obama in 2016.

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So the original Monument looked a bit like a kinky sausage.

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The expanded Monument under Obama

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looks like a big melted popsicle.

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And in any case, it's large.

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As Andy mentioned, it's over 500,000 square miles.

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That makes it larger

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than all of our national parks combined.

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It's home to 7,000 Marine species,

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nesting area for 14 million seabirds

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and 90% of all the ESA listed Hawaiian green sea turtles.

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It's got 140 native Hawaiian cultural sites.

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It's home to some of the best preserved

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shallow water shipwrecks from the Post-Contact era

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dating to the 1800's.

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And for all these reasons,

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it was designated by the United Nations in 2010

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as a World Heritage Site

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on the basis of both its natural history

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and cultural values.

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The Monument is a remote place,

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you have to go about 3,000 miles

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to get anywhere else from the Monument.

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And as a result, it's coral reefs are largely protected

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from the effects of fishing, tourism,

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land-based sources of pollution,

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most of the things that,

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cause impacts to reefs in other parts of the world.

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But unfortunately, isolation still doesn't protect it

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from what's happening on the rest of the planet.

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And the planet, as we know,

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is going through some conniptions lately.

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This is the carbon dioxide curve from off of Mauna Loa,

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the Mauna Loa Observatory here in Hawaii.

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And as you can see, the most recent value

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for atmospheric CO2 in July of this year

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was 419 parts per million.

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Now I'll admit I am now 63 years old.

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So this curve started one year before I was born,

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which means that during my lifetime CO2 has increased 33%,

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which means I will never again see the atmosphere

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that I knew when I was growing up

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as a young boy in Colorado.

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And where we go from here is largely up to us,

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but there's a number of different pathways

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that are plausible.

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The problem is we're tracking

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on the most aggressive emissions pathway.

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And in fact, the recent pandemic,

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although it caused a lot of economic slowdown,

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really didn't put much of the dent

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in our accumulation of emissions.

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And so we are still tracking on a curve that right now,

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without some serious policy solutions,

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is going to take us to a place

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where we're about four to six degrees centigrade

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warmer than now by the end of the century,

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which is well beyond the two degrees centigrade

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that the experts tell us at the IPCC

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we need to hold to,

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to keep very bad things from happening.

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If you look at where heat has gone since 1880,

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you can see that we've essentially gone nowhere but up.

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And 2020 tied 2016 as the hottest year on record,

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finished off the hottest decade ever observed

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since these records began in the 19th century

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and 2021 is still in the running,

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despite a cool polar vortex pattern

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this spring in North America,

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to perhaps equal or beat that.

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For instance, July of this year,

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is the hottest month ever in 142 years of record keeping.

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So if you thought it was hot, it was.

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And all that heat has to go somewhere.

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A lot of it is going to the poles

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and quite a bit of it is going to the Arctic

262
00:14:01.500 --> 00:14:05.520
where there's been a 20% loss of polar ice since 1979.

263
00:14:05.520 --> 00:14:07.040
So there's no place on the earth

264
00:14:07.040 --> 00:14:09.320
that's changing faster than the Arctic.

265
00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:10.980
However, what happens in the Arctic

266
00:14:10.980 --> 00:14:13.340
comes back to affect the rest of us.

267
00:14:13.340 --> 00:14:16.190
In 2021, the polar vortex flip,

268
00:14:16.190 --> 00:14:17.840
normally the cold air is at the pole,

269
00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:18.980
the warm air is in the south.

270
00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:20.620
If you put warm air at the pole,

271
00:14:20.620 --> 00:14:22.190
the cold air goes somewhere

272
00:14:22.190 --> 00:14:25.290
and it comes down into North America and Eurasia.

273
00:14:25.290 --> 00:14:29.840
This is called a warm poles-cold continents phenomenon

274
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:30.760
and when it happens,

275
00:14:30.760 --> 00:14:33.410
you get something like what went on in Texas,

276
00:14:33.410 --> 00:14:35.930
where Dallas was colder than the North Pole,

277
00:14:35.930 --> 00:14:39.070
the electrical grid essentially ceased to function.

278
00:14:39.070 --> 00:14:41.780
And you remember all the chaos that created

279
00:14:41.780 --> 00:14:44.680
including basically driving up everybody else's

280
00:14:44.680 --> 00:14:46.580
electrical bills across the continent.

281
00:14:47.690 --> 00:14:50.980
Well, it turned out in the meantime,

282
00:14:50.980 --> 00:14:52.830
you've got a mega drought

283
00:14:52.830 --> 00:14:55.250
that's continuing to affect the Southwestern US

284
00:14:55.250 --> 00:14:57.710
and has been for 20 years.

285
00:14:57.710 --> 00:15:00.500
This is coupled with record high air temperatures

286
00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:01.510
this past year.

287
00:15:01.510 --> 00:15:04.560
I was in Death Valley on the 27th of June,

288
00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:05.950
it was 120 degrees.

289
00:15:05.950 --> 00:15:08.300
That's not unusual for Death Valley.

290
00:15:08.300 --> 00:15:11.350
Portland, Oregon was only four degrees cooler

291
00:15:11.350 --> 00:15:15.620
at 116 degrees and that is unusual.

292
00:15:15.620 --> 00:15:18.820
This has serious impacts to terrestrial ecology.

293
00:15:18.820 --> 00:15:21.630
Five of the largest six wildfires in California history

294
00:15:21.630 --> 00:15:23.280
have occurred in the last five years.

295
00:15:23.280 --> 00:15:25.630
The second largest ever is burning right now,

296
00:15:25.630 --> 00:15:28.313
the Dixie Fire west of Lake Tahoe.

297
00:15:29.630 --> 00:15:33.460
Similar fires are burning in Siberia, Turkey, Greece.

298
00:15:33.460 --> 00:15:35.170
You've probably seen this on the news.

299
00:15:35.170 --> 00:15:38.460
The point is that it's not just a North American problem,

300
00:15:38.460 --> 00:15:39.763
it's a world problem.

301
00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:43.500
And this also impacts hydrology.

302
00:15:43.500 --> 00:15:45.500
Our big reservoirs in the Southwest,

303
00:15:45.500 --> 00:15:47.490
upon which millions of people depend

304
00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:51.190
are now only about 30% full.

305
00:15:51.190 --> 00:15:54.470
And we're not going to go fill them back up anytime soon

306
00:15:54.470 --> 00:15:58.340
because the next runoff season is not until next spring.

307
00:15:58.340 --> 00:16:00.840
And so these are long-term problems

308
00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:02.810
that are going to persist.

309
00:16:02.810 --> 00:16:04.640
The point of all this is that

310
00:16:04.640 --> 00:16:06.670
no matter where you live in the United States,

311
00:16:06.670 --> 00:16:09.983
the effects of climate change are manifest around you.

312
00:16:11.373 --> 00:16:12.970
And for details of all this,

313
00:16:12.970 --> 00:16:15.160
you can see the recent IPCC report

314
00:16:15.160 --> 00:16:17.123
that came out in the last two weeks.

315
00:16:18.150 --> 00:16:20.610
But the problem we have with the Monument

316
00:16:20.610 --> 00:16:23.823
is that these same sorts of effects end up hitting us there.

317
00:16:25.100 --> 00:16:28.070
The climate-linked drivers that impact the Monument

318
00:16:28.070 --> 00:16:30.790
include rising air and sea temperatures

319
00:16:30.790 --> 00:16:32.300
and these create thermal stresses

320
00:16:32.300 --> 00:16:35.390
for marine and terrestrial organisms.

321
00:16:35.390 --> 00:16:37.130
We have rising sea levels,

322
00:16:37.130 --> 00:16:40.110
which threaten to inundate many of our low lying islands

323
00:16:40.110 --> 00:16:42.030
by the end of the century.

324
00:16:42.030 --> 00:16:44.360
We have a higher incidence of severe storms

325
00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:47.830
and associated waves, which cause shoreline erosion

326
00:16:47.830 --> 00:16:50.400
and of course, this is only worse when you're building

327
00:16:50.400 --> 00:16:55.340
on top of a base of sea level to begin with.

328
00:16:55.340 --> 00:16:57.720
We have changes in precipitation,

329
00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:00.420
which cause stresses to terrestrial biota,

330
00:17:00.420 --> 00:17:01.750
particularly vegetation.

331
00:17:01.750 --> 00:17:04.000
And we have changing ocean chemistry

332
00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:05.970
in the form of decreasing ocean pH,

333
00:17:05.970 --> 00:17:08.223
which affects how our corals to be calcify.

334
00:17:09.410 --> 00:17:11.970
So let's go through some of these one by one.

335
00:17:11.970 --> 00:17:14.240
The rising air temperatures.

336
00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:15.630
Here's the plot globally.

337
00:17:15.630 --> 00:17:18.450
These affect terrestrial ecosystems.

338
00:17:18.450 --> 00:17:21.090
The problem we have in the Monument is that we don't have

339
00:17:21.090 --> 00:17:24.130
any long-term terrestrial climate recording stations.

340
00:17:24.130 --> 00:17:25.100
Why not, you ask?

341
00:17:25.100 --> 00:17:26.310
Well, the National Weather Service

342
00:17:26.310 --> 00:17:28.000
likes to put them on towers.

343
00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:30.810
Towers and albatross don't mix.

344
00:17:30.810 --> 00:17:34.360
And so the result is that we don't have a very good baseline

345
00:17:34.360 --> 00:17:37.720
for where our air temperatures have gone in the Monument

346
00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:41.100
over this past span of time from 1880 to 2000.

347
00:17:41.100 --> 00:17:44.260
However, we do have good recording stations

348
00:17:44.260 --> 00:17:46.070
in the main Hawaiian Islands.

349
00:17:46.070 --> 00:17:49.540
And in 2019, we had our hottest summer ever.

350
00:17:49.540 --> 00:17:54.540
Lihue on Kauai has a station with 114 years of record.

351
00:17:54.800 --> 00:17:58.000
It broke its daily record 52 times.

352
00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:00.880
And in one case for 20 consecutive days.

353
00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:02.530
That's almost unheard of

354
00:18:02.530 --> 00:18:05.040
at a station with this many years of record.

355
00:18:05.040 --> 00:18:08.280
In fact, you can see in August and September,

356
00:18:08.280 --> 00:18:10.240
essentially records were being broken

357
00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:12.743
more or less every other day.

358
00:18:13.820 --> 00:18:16.350
Honolulu was not far behind,

359
00:18:16.350 --> 00:18:19.080
broke its daily record on 45 different days

360
00:18:19.080 --> 00:18:22.260
at another station with over 100 years of record.

361
00:18:22.260 --> 00:18:24.520
All that unprecedented, really.

362
00:18:24.520 --> 00:18:26.040
Why does this matter?

363
00:18:26.040 --> 00:18:28.960
Well, in the Monument, if things get hotter,

364
00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:31.420
albatross normally incubate their eggs.

365
00:18:31.420 --> 00:18:32.680
The problem starts to become,

366
00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:35.100
they can't keep them cool enough,

367
00:18:35.100 --> 00:18:36.740
even though they sit on them.

368
00:18:36.740 --> 00:18:39.180
And if you're a sea turtle nest

369
00:18:39.180 --> 00:18:41.480
and you get heated up, it influences development.

370
00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:44.160
And therefore most of the hatchling come out female

371
00:18:44.160 --> 00:18:46.300
and you end up with very few males.

372
00:18:46.300 --> 00:18:51.300
So these air temperatures really do have an impact

373
00:18:51.320 --> 00:18:54.980
on terrestrial wildlife and marine wildlife.

374
00:18:54.980 --> 00:18:57.470
Ocean heat content is also steadily rising

375
00:18:57.470 --> 00:18:59.700
and it's tracking fairly similar

376
00:18:59.700 --> 00:19:01.150
to the air temperature curve.

377
00:19:02.010 --> 00:19:03.850
Here you can see the sea surface temperatures here

378
00:19:03.850 --> 00:19:05.573
from 1880 to 2020.

379
00:19:06.770 --> 00:19:08.690
The sea surface temperature we have a very good handle on

380
00:19:08.690 --> 00:19:11.610
cause we can get a daily reading by satellites.

381
00:19:11.610 --> 00:19:14.910
And so if you go to the NOAA Coral Reef watch page,

382
00:19:14.910 --> 00:19:17.510
then you can see exactly where we're going on any given day

383
00:19:17.510 --> 00:19:18.960
with sea surface temperature.

384
00:19:19.910 --> 00:19:21.540
Increasing ocean temperature, however,

385
00:19:21.540 --> 00:19:24.440
is not evenly distributed on a global scale.

386
00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:27.180
Some places warm or cool more than others.

387
00:19:27.180 --> 00:19:31.040
This is a plot from the last 25 years or so.

388
00:19:31.040 --> 00:19:34.220
And it shows you that the far northwestern end

389
00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:36.620
of the Monument up near Midway and Kure

390
00:19:36.620 --> 00:19:38.653
is actually heating slightly faster

391
00:19:38.653 --> 00:19:41.563
than the main Hawaiian islands are.

392
00:19:42.970 --> 00:19:45.720
These trends in sea and air temperature tend to be linked

393
00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:48.700
to the El Nino Southern Oscillation pattern

394
00:19:48.700 --> 00:19:51.230
that's known as ENSO.

395
00:19:51.230 --> 00:19:55.390
And what we've got here is a plot that shows

396
00:19:55.390 --> 00:19:59.590
how ENSO is varied from warm red El Nino phases

397
00:19:59.590 --> 00:20:01.530
to cool La Ninas.

398
00:20:01.530 --> 00:20:03.350
Notice that around 2015,

399
00:20:03.350 --> 00:20:07.570
we had a good solid El Nino that showed up in the Pacific.

400
00:20:07.570 --> 00:20:09.990
That had an effect on the Monument

401
00:20:09.990 --> 00:20:11.263
in a rather dramatic way,

402
00:20:12.910 --> 00:20:15.900
in regards to significant coral bleaching.

403
00:20:15.900 --> 00:20:18.470
This pattern of ENSO rides on the back

404
00:20:18.470 --> 00:20:20.180
of a much broader cycle

405
00:20:20.180 --> 00:20:22.180
called the Pacific decadal oscillation,

406
00:20:22.180 --> 00:20:23.330
which isn't really decadal,

407
00:20:23.330 --> 00:20:25.970
it runs on about 15 to 20 year cycles.

408
00:20:25.970 --> 00:20:28.270
We were in a cooler limb of the PDO.

409
00:20:28.270 --> 00:20:30.440
We're now in a warm limb of the PDO,

410
00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:32.880
which means our heat related issues

411
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:35.590
will probably simply be amplified

412
00:20:35.590 --> 00:20:37.270
over the next 10 years or so.

413
00:20:37.270 --> 00:20:39.847
That's not helpful, but it's simply the way it is.

414
00:20:40.870 --> 00:20:44.370
Okay, rising ocean temperatures lead to coral bleaching.

415
00:20:44.370 --> 00:20:47.400
Corals spit out their symbiotic zooxanthellae,

416
00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:50.160
bleach and eventually die.

417
00:20:50.160 --> 00:20:52.360
The first recorded instance of this in Hawaii

418
00:20:52.360 --> 00:20:55.470
was about 20 years ago and it was up in the northwestern.

419
00:20:55.470 --> 00:20:57.170
Because even though we're further north,

420
00:20:57.170 --> 00:20:58.480
that means we're more temperate,

421
00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:01.820
we're colder in the winter, but we're warmer in the summer.

422
00:21:01.820 --> 00:21:04.430
As it turns out now, bleaching has moved down

423
00:21:04.430 --> 00:21:06.210
into the main Hawaiian islands as well.

424
00:21:06.210 --> 00:21:11.070
And so we picked it up twice in the last eight years or so.

425
00:21:11.070 --> 00:21:14.560
So rather than becoming something that we never saw before,

426
00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:16.100
this is now becoming something

427
00:21:16.100 --> 00:21:18.550
that we're seeing fairly regularly.

428
00:21:18.550 --> 00:21:20.500
And here's the impacts in the Monument.

429
00:21:20.500 --> 00:21:23.270
I mentioned the 2015 El Nino.

430
00:21:23.270 --> 00:21:25.390
At Lisianski Island,

431
00:21:25.390 --> 00:21:29.210
we lost 95% of the coral cover on the east side.

432
00:21:29.210 --> 00:21:32.260
It dropped from 70% to 1%.

433
00:21:32.260 --> 00:21:35.500
And yes, these pictures show exactly the same reef

434
00:21:35.500 --> 00:21:38.450
in 2014 and then in 2015.

435
00:21:38.450 --> 00:21:40.410
And so losses of this sort

436
00:21:40.410 --> 00:21:43.070
are simply not easily recovered from,

437
00:21:43.070 --> 00:21:44.410
but it shows you what happens

438
00:21:44.410 --> 00:21:48.203
when we get warm waters in the Monument in a strong El Nino.

439
00:21:49.170 --> 00:21:51.883
And such events are predicted to become more frequent.

440
00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:57.340
By 2030, every pixel in the Indo-Pacific

441
00:21:57.340 --> 00:21:59.560
and the Atlantic with coral in it,

442
00:21:59.560 --> 00:22:02.720
will probably bleach to some extent every year.

443
00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:04.693
That doesn't mean it will be the extent of bleaching

444
00:22:04.693 --> 00:22:07.310
that you just saw an example from Lisianski,

445
00:22:07.310 --> 00:22:09.460
but what it does mean is that,

446
00:22:09.460 --> 00:22:13.050
there will be some degree of heat stress on every coral,

447
00:22:13.050 --> 00:22:15.093
everywhere by mid-century.

448
00:22:16.090 --> 00:22:19.960
Sea level rise is another one of our major challenges

449
00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:21.140
in the Monument.

450
00:22:21.140 --> 00:22:25.560
This is the trendline from 1993 up to 2021.

451
00:22:25.560 --> 00:22:27.540
This is the satellite altimetry record.

452
00:22:27.540 --> 00:22:30.063
However, we have tide gauges in the Monument

453
00:22:30.063 --> 00:22:31.880
that go back 74 years.

454
00:22:31.880 --> 00:22:35.780
We have Honolulu's tide gauge that goes back over 100.

455
00:22:35.780 --> 00:22:37.480
And when you lay the tide gauge records

456
00:22:37.480 --> 00:22:40.010
on the satellite record, they match very well.

457
00:22:40.010 --> 00:22:43.610
So essentially you can pull this same trend line back

458
00:22:43.610 --> 00:22:47.810
to about the late 1800's and it still holds.

459
00:22:47.810 --> 00:22:49.510
At the moment sea level's rising

460
00:22:49.510 --> 00:22:52.510
at about 3.4 millimeters per year.

461
00:22:52.510 --> 00:22:56.250
That translates out to about a meter of ocean rise

462
00:22:56.250 --> 00:22:58.370
over the course of the century.

463
00:22:58.370 --> 00:23:01.070
And given that we're starting to see some increasing melt

464
00:23:01.070 --> 00:23:04.950
in Greenland and Antarctica and other land-based ice sheets,

465
00:23:04.950 --> 00:23:07.750
this could well be a conservative estimate.

466
00:23:07.750 --> 00:23:11.920
But at the moment, my general mantra is, add a meter.

467
00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:14.900
Look at any shoreline and add a meter

468
00:23:14.900 --> 00:23:16.750
and think about where that leads you.

469
00:23:17.710 --> 00:23:19.410
Once again, as with the emissions,

470
00:23:19.410 --> 00:23:21.840
where all this goes is somewhat up to us

471
00:23:21.840 --> 00:23:26.460
because a lot of the rise in sea level

472
00:23:26.460 --> 00:23:29.500
is in fact due to thermal expansion of the waters.

473
00:23:29.500 --> 00:23:32.883
And therefore it's basically due to emissions and heating.

474
00:23:33.800 --> 00:23:36.630
These are the same emission scenarios

475
00:23:36.630 --> 00:23:39.670
that I showed you for temperature,

476
00:23:39.670 --> 00:23:41.710
just plotted on to sea level.

477
00:23:41.710 --> 00:23:43.960
Realize going out here to about 2,300,

478
00:23:43.960 --> 00:23:46.090
but what it does show you is that

479
00:23:46.090 --> 00:23:50.250
you have a reasonable expectation of a rise of one meter,

480
00:23:50.250 --> 00:23:54.250
possibly 1.5 meters, that's three to five feet,

481
00:23:54.250 --> 00:23:55.880
by the end of this century.

482
00:23:55.880 --> 00:23:58.640
And if you happen to be a low lying protected area,

483
00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:00.810
like the Monument for the most part,

484
00:24:00.810 --> 00:24:03.220
that is indeed a challenge.

485
00:24:03.220 --> 00:24:06.410
Sea level rise just like sea temperature,

486
00:24:06.410 --> 00:24:08.300
is not evenly distributed.

487
00:24:08.300 --> 00:24:10.537
It goes up faster in some places than others

488
00:24:10.537 --> 00:24:12.940
for a variety of reasons.

489
00:24:12.940 --> 00:24:16.420
And what you can see is that once again,

490
00:24:16.420 --> 00:24:18.830
the northwestern end of the Monument

491
00:24:18.830 --> 00:24:21.850
up toward Midway and Kure and Pearl and Hermes

492
00:24:21.850 --> 00:24:24.310
has shown a somewhat faster rate of rise

493
00:24:24.310 --> 00:24:26.223
than the remainder of the archipelago.

494
00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:30.170
How do we model this?

495
00:24:30.170 --> 00:24:34.810
Well, you can basically just project forward and say, "Okay,

496
00:24:34.810 --> 00:24:37.050
sea level is going to come up X amount.

497
00:24:37.050 --> 00:24:39.910
And let's just pull this up on the shorelines of the islands

498
00:24:39.910 --> 00:24:43.080
as if everything was sitting in a nice calm bathtub."

499
00:24:43.080 --> 00:24:46.360
And for Laysan Island that gives you the result

500
00:24:46.360 --> 00:24:47.520
shown to the left.

501
00:24:47.520 --> 00:24:51.570
However, people like Curt Storlazzi at USGS Santa Cruz

502
00:24:51.570 --> 00:24:53.910
have then put wave forcing on top of this.

503
00:24:53.910 --> 00:24:55.670
And what you see is that your vulnerabilities,

504
00:24:55.670 --> 00:24:59.390
once you add in waves, are considerably greater.

505
00:24:59.390 --> 00:25:00.420
And so you can see that

506
00:25:00.420 --> 00:25:02.630
if you're on the windward side of Laysan,

507
00:25:02.630 --> 00:25:05.990
at various future sea-level states, if you add waves,

508
00:25:05.990 --> 00:25:08.180
suddenly you're seeing a whole set of vulnerabilities

509
00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:10.490
you didn't anticipate before.

510
00:25:10.490 --> 00:25:11.970
It gets even more dramatic

511
00:25:11.970 --> 00:25:13.940
if we go to Midway and look at Eastern Island,

512
00:25:13.940 --> 00:25:15.790
this was the island that was the airbase

513
00:25:15.790 --> 00:25:17.040
during the Battle of Midway.

514
00:25:17.040 --> 00:25:19.160
It's now inhabited by birds.

515
00:25:19.160 --> 00:25:22.280
But in fact, it doesn't take much

516
00:25:22.280 --> 00:25:24.320
in the way of sea level rise and wave forcing

517
00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:27.210
to potentially inundate quite a lot of this islet

518
00:25:27.210 --> 00:25:28.723
on a periodic basis.

519
00:25:29.730 --> 00:25:32.270
Most of our operations are in fact based now

520
00:25:32.270 --> 00:25:34.230
at Sand Island on Midway.

521
00:25:34.230 --> 00:25:36.530
And this is where we have a major airstrip,

522
00:25:36.530 --> 00:25:39.860
it's a major emergency diver point

523
00:25:39.860 --> 00:25:41.740
for transpacific airliners.

524
00:25:41.740 --> 00:25:42.880
If they can't use it,

525
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:46.730
we have to reshuffle all of the airline traffic

526
00:25:46.730 --> 00:25:47.730
in the Northern Pacific.

527
00:25:47.730 --> 00:25:48.800
And what you can see is that,

528
00:25:48.800 --> 00:25:52.570
even at relatively modest rates of sea level rise,

529
00:25:52.570 --> 00:25:55.700
we've got some issues with the airstrip at Midway.

530
00:25:55.700 --> 00:25:57.770
So this was a clear cause for concern.

531
00:25:57.770 --> 00:25:59.920
This is our base of operations.

532
00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:02.080
This is an important site for the FAA,

533
00:26:02.080 --> 00:26:05.470
and it's also extremely vulnerable to sea level rise

534
00:26:05.470 --> 00:26:07.020
and wave forced sea level rise.

535
00:26:08.430 --> 00:26:11.180
In addition, there's something called crossover points

536
00:26:11.180 --> 00:26:15.040
that Dickinson talked about in a paper in 2009.

537
00:26:15.040 --> 00:26:18.150
As it turns out, an islet on an atoll

538
00:26:18.150 --> 00:26:21.910
is basically a carbonate platform, which is hard,

539
00:26:21.910 --> 00:26:24.510
overlaid by alluvium, which is soft.

540
00:26:24.510 --> 00:26:28.450
So you don't have to go completely over the top of an island

541
00:26:28.450 --> 00:26:31.700
before it starts to fall apart under attack by waves.

542
00:26:31.700 --> 00:26:33.210
All you have to do is get above

543
00:26:33.210 --> 00:26:36.290
the carbonate foundation of the islet

544
00:26:36.290 --> 00:26:39.470
and it starts to erode away much more quickly.

545
00:26:39.470 --> 00:26:43.670
And this is what Dickinson called the crossover point.

546
00:26:43.670 --> 00:26:46.380
There's a reasonable possibility we'll be there

547
00:26:46.380 --> 00:26:50.213
in the Monument and many other parts of the Pacific by 2050.

548
00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:54.860
Precipitation, very much like air temperature

549
00:26:54.860 --> 00:26:57.470
in the Monument, the issue that we've got,

550
00:26:57.470 --> 00:27:02.470
is that we've never had good long-term rainfall gauging

551
00:27:04.420 --> 00:27:05.910
in the Monument the same way

552
00:27:05.910 --> 00:27:07.670
that we haven't had good temperature gauging

553
00:27:07.670 --> 00:27:09.540
because it's the same sort of weather station

554
00:27:09.540 --> 00:27:11.470
that doesn't agree with albatross.

555
00:27:11.470 --> 00:27:15.610
So we do however, have very excellent data

556
00:27:15.610 --> 00:27:16.900
from the main Hawaiian islands.

557
00:27:16.900 --> 00:27:19.420
The plantations back then cared about water,

558
00:27:19.420 --> 00:27:22.340
they gauged rainfall and stream flow extensively.

559
00:27:22.340 --> 00:27:23.997
And Delwyn Oki at the USGS

560
00:27:23.997 --> 00:27:26.440
did a very elegant study where he showed

561
00:27:26.440 --> 00:27:28.210
that over the course of the century,

562
00:27:28.210 --> 00:27:30.690
rainfall and stream based flow

563
00:27:30.690 --> 00:27:34.510
had slowly but steadily declined throughout the mains.

564
00:27:34.510 --> 00:27:36.100
And there's no reason to think

565
00:27:36.100 --> 00:27:38.010
that this same pattern hasn't occurred

566
00:27:38.010 --> 00:27:40.633
in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as well.

567
00:27:42.590 --> 00:27:47.150
Now at the same time, a warmer atmosphere holds more water

568
00:27:47.150 --> 00:27:49.680
and people are starting to learn this.

569
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:52.490
If you lived in Houston in August 2017,

570
00:27:52.490 --> 00:27:54.320
you got 50 inches in six days

571
00:27:54.320 --> 00:27:56.530
when Hurricane Harvey showed up.

572
00:27:56.530 --> 00:27:59.880
That was enough to cause a tremendous amount of flooding

573
00:27:59.880 --> 00:28:02.140
and damage in Houston.

574
00:28:02.140 --> 00:28:05.320
What's more remarkable, however, in the Hawaiian islands

575
00:28:05.320 --> 00:28:09.440
is that we got the same amount in only 24 hours

576
00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:14.300
at Waipa on Kauai on the 15th of April in 2018.

577
00:28:15.210 --> 00:28:20.210
So that's nearly 50 inches of rain in one day.

578
00:28:20.650 --> 00:28:23.203
And needless to say it all went somewhere,

579
00:28:24.410 --> 00:28:26.610
but Kauai isn't Houston

580
00:28:26.610 --> 00:28:29.100
and so it wasn't quite as catastrophic,

581
00:28:29.100 --> 00:28:31.450
but I'll tell you the people who went through that,

582
00:28:31.450 --> 00:28:33.770
it sure made an impression on them.

583
00:28:33.770 --> 00:28:35.640
The bottom line is such events

584
00:28:35.640 --> 00:28:37.750
may become more common in the future.

585
00:28:37.750 --> 00:28:42.750
So the point is that you may not have more rainfall

586
00:28:43.060 --> 00:28:44.820
evenly distributed through a year,

587
00:28:44.820 --> 00:28:48.190
but you may have more isolated, extreme events,

588
00:28:48.190 --> 00:28:51.040
which actually come with their own destructive potential.

589
00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:55.490
Tropical storms under a warming climate.

590
00:28:55.490 --> 00:28:58.930
Actually, interestingly enough, decrease in number

591
00:28:58.930 --> 00:29:00.460
because we're changing something called

592
00:29:00.460 --> 00:29:02.370
the adiabatic lapse rate.

593
00:29:02.370 --> 00:29:06.210
But the individual storms themselves are often stronger

594
00:29:06.210 --> 00:29:09.050
and what's most worrisome is they've shown a recent trend

595
00:29:09.050 --> 00:29:11.113
of intensifying far more quickly.

596
00:29:12.020 --> 00:29:16.030
Hurricane Walaka passed through Papahānaumokuākea

597
00:29:16.030 --> 00:29:18.640
on the 3rd and 4th of October 2018.

598
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:21.460
This was a storm that started well east of us,

599
00:29:21.460 --> 00:29:23.723
then got west, then hooked north.

600
00:29:25.390 --> 00:29:28.680
Nobody was on French Frigate Shoals to see what happened.

601
00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:31.580
However, we were able to use satellite instruments

602
00:29:31.580 --> 00:29:33.400
to estimate that the wind speeds

603
00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:37.090
were somewhere between 130 and 150 miles an hour.

604
00:29:37.090 --> 00:29:38.470
We were able to track the center

605
00:29:38.470 --> 00:29:41.000
by the radius of 12 foot seas.

606
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:42.780
And we do know that it basically went

607
00:29:42.780 --> 00:29:47.040
from a category one to a category four in only 30 hours.

608
00:29:47.040 --> 00:29:50.530
And as noted, this mirrors sort of a global trend

609
00:29:50.530 --> 00:29:54.040
of rapid intensification of such storms.

610
00:29:54.040 --> 00:29:57.193
The results in this case were basically catastrophic.

611
00:29:58.460 --> 00:30:01.710
Here is East Island at French Frigate Shoals.

612
00:30:01.710 --> 00:30:03.010
The way it looked in May

613
00:30:03.010 --> 00:30:05.830
and the way it looked in October after the storm.

614
00:30:05.830 --> 00:30:08.870
This was one of our major sea turtle nesting sites

615
00:30:08.870 --> 00:30:10.190
in the Monument.

616
00:30:10.190 --> 00:30:13.020
And you can see that it was essentially eliminated.

617
00:30:13.020 --> 00:30:15.560
There's still a little piece sticking out in October,

618
00:30:15.560 --> 00:30:18.410
but it's not even in the same place it was before.

619
00:30:18.410 --> 00:30:21.750
So a fairly consolidated vegetated island

620
00:30:21.750 --> 00:30:24.763
with a lot of sea turtle nests simply vanished overnight.

621
00:30:25.710 --> 00:30:28.470
Now it has been shoaling back in.

622
00:30:28.470 --> 00:30:32.200
And so we may pick some of this islet up again,

623
00:30:32.200 --> 00:30:34.680
but certainly not for a long time

624
00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:37.080
in the same form that it previously had.

625
00:30:37.080 --> 00:30:40.480
And at the moment it's more like a shifting sandbar

626
00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:42.263
than it is a stable island.

627
00:30:44.160 --> 00:30:46.320
At French Frigate Shoals also, we have Tern Island.

628
00:30:46.320 --> 00:30:48.790
This used to be one of our bases of operation

629
00:30:48.790 --> 00:30:50.080
because the navy turned it

630
00:30:50.080 --> 00:30:51.900
into an unsinkable aircraft carrier

631
00:30:51.900 --> 00:30:54.940
by building an airstrip on it back in World War II.

632
00:30:54.940 --> 00:30:56.740
Thus, it looks like a rectangle now.

633
00:30:57.860 --> 00:31:01.370
However, you can see that on the right-hand side

634
00:31:01.370 --> 00:31:04.290
from below, waves washed in interestingly

635
00:31:04.290 --> 00:31:06.450
from inside the lagoon

636
00:31:06.450 --> 00:31:08.600
and pushed a tremendous amount of sand

637
00:31:08.600 --> 00:31:12.460
up over the old airstrip and the winds of the storm managed

638
00:31:12.460 --> 00:31:14.900
to tear most of the remaining infrastructure to pieces

639
00:31:14.900 --> 00:31:16.460
and pilot up in the lee,

640
00:31:16.460 --> 00:31:18.470
where it created an entanglement hazard

641
00:31:18.470 --> 00:31:20.790
for sea turtles and monk seals.

642
00:31:20.790 --> 00:31:23.300
So we had to send people up there to scoop all that out

643
00:31:23.300 --> 00:31:25.170
and get rid of it on a barge.

644
00:31:25.170 --> 00:31:29.690
And in addition, this wave based erosion

645
00:31:29.690 --> 00:31:32.430
is starting to expose old contaminant sites

646
00:31:32.430 --> 00:31:35.120
because the Navy had buried old transformers

647
00:31:35.120 --> 00:31:36.100
at one end of the island,

648
00:31:36.100 --> 00:31:38.570
and they're now leaking PCBs in the waters.

649
00:31:38.570 --> 00:31:40.800
So this shows you that there's a variety

650
00:31:40.800 --> 00:31:43.060
of translated effects that end up

651
00:31:43.060 --> 00:31:46.003
when you start having coastal erosion of this type.

652
00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:50.810
Now I noted that the waves here came from within the lagoon

653
00:31:50.810 --> 00:31:52.840
because of the way that the storm was spinning

654
00:31:52.840 --> 00:31:54.110
when it passed.

655
00:31:54.110 --> 00:31:56.960
However, on the outside of the lagoon,

656
00:31:56.960 --> 00:31:59.000
that would be in the upper left,

657
00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:01.410
outside of the surrounding reef,

658
00:32:01.410 --> 00:32:04.400
we had one of our most beautiful reefs in the Monument.

659
00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:07.940
We called it Rapture Reef and features in many

660
00:32:07.940 --> 00:32:11.270
of the pictures that are on our Monument management plan,

661
00:32:11.270 --> 00:32:13.520
and many of our websites,

662
00:32:13.520 --> 00:32:16.460
essentially Walaka wiped it off the map

663
00:32:16.460 --> 00:32:21.160
and left it as essentially a gray carbonate wasteland.

664
00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:23.690
How long will it take this reef to recover?

665
00:32:23.690 --> 00:32:26.610
We really don't know, whether it can

666
00:32:26.610 --> 00:32:30.390
or will in a rapidly changing ocean.

667
00:32:30.390 --> 00:32:32.380
It's just one more thing we now monitor

668
00:32:32.380 --> 00:32:35.030
when we send our research cruises up to the Monument.

669
00:32:36.470 --> 00:32:38.170
Finally changing ocean chemistry.

670
00:32:38.170 --> 00:32:39.870
Isn't really due to change,

671
00:32:39.870 --> 00:32:42.470
but it is due to a change in atmospheric chemistry,

672
00:32:42.470 --> 00:32:44.620
which then is reflected in the ocean.

673
00:32:44.620 --> 00:32:46.910
People call this ocean acidification.

674
00:32:46.910 --> 00:32:50.620
I don't actually like that term because the ocean is basic

675
00:32:50.620 --> 00:32:53.430
and whatever it becomes acid we're all dead.

676
00:32:53.430 --> 00:32:57.540
But what happens is the ocean is taking up

677
00:32:57.540 --> 00:32:59.550
an increasing amount of carbon dioxide,

678
00:32:59.550 --> 00:33:04.500
and therefore it is demonstrating that declining pH value.

679
00:33:04.500 --> 00:33:06.350
It's still not acidic,

680
00:33:06.350 --> 00:33:09.160
but it's certainly less basic than it used to be.

681
00:33:09.160 --> 00:33:11.370
And in this case, unlike all the other curves,

682
00:33:11.370 --> 00:33:13.520
a declining curve is bad.

683
00:33:13.520 --> 00:33:15.210
Because what this does is this lowers

684
00:33:15.210 --> 00:33:17.000
the aragonite saturation point,

685
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:18.870
which makes it much harder for corals

686
00:33:18.870 --> 00:33:20.803
to build their hard skeletons.

687
00:33:22.420 --> 00:33:24.670
And we actually can show that

688
00:33:24.670 --> 00:33:28.330
this phenomenon is playing out in the waters around Hawaii,

689
00:33:28.330 --> 00:33:30.960
because there's a station out in the open ocean

690
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:33.467
about 100 kilometers north of Hawaii

691
00:33:33.467 --> 00:33:34.600
that the University of Hawaii

692
00:33:34.600 --> 00:33:37.610
has run since 1988 called Station Aloha.

693
00:33:37.610 --> 00:33:40.200
And they've been sending research vessels out here

694
00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:43.880
to take water chemistry samples and analyze what's going on.

695
00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:47.230
And you can see a clear rise and dissolved CO2

696
00:33:47.230 --> 00:33:49.970
and a clear decline in ocean pH.

697
00:33:49.970 --> 00:33:51.620
So this is a pretty good indication

698
00:33:51.620 --> 00:33:54.890
that the waters around the Monument are actually seeing

699
00:33:54.890 --> 00:33:57.780
a change in their chemistry overall,

700
00:33:57.780 --> 00:33:59.810
how this actually translates out

701
00:33:59.810 --> 00:34:01.670
into real biological effects

702
00:34:01.670 --> 00:34:04.010
in nearshore waters is more complicated

703
00:34:04.010 --> 00:34:07.510
because there's a lot real metabolic signals

704
00:34:07.510 --> 00:34:08.850
that play out there.

705
00:34:08.850 --> 00:34:11.660
But the point is that yes, in Hawaii,

706
00:34:11.660 --> 00:34:13.990
we are seeing the results

707
00:34:13.990 --> 00:34:17.230
of quote unquote ocean acidification.

708
00:34:17.230 --> 00:34:19.140
And this, like other variables

709
00:34:19.140 --> 00:34:21.320
plays out unevenly around the planet.

710
00:34:21.320 --> 00:34:23.390
This is recent data for EPA

711
00:34:23.390 --> 00:34:26.330
and it shows that ocean chemistry declining pH

712
00:34:26.330 --> 00:34:28.317
is changing more rapidly,

713
00:34:28.317 --> 00:34:31.900
once again up towards Midway, Kure, Pearl and Hermes,

714
00:34:31.900 --> 00:34:34.407
than it is in the remainder of the model.

715
00:34:35.490 --> 00:34:38.707
So these are our projected values for the Monument

716
00:34:38.707 --> 00:34:40.360
and we take a look at all of this.

717
00:34:40.360 --> 00:34:44.550
Going forward, ocean heat content, no doubt about it,

718
00:34:44.550 --> 00:34:47.200
it's going to exhibit a steady long-term rise.

719
00:34:47.200 --> 00:34:50.363
Our sea surface temperatures will probably, by 2100.

720
00:34:55.830 --> 00:34:59.600
In terms of sea level, it will certainly continue to rise

721
00:34:59.600 --> 00:35:02.250
20 to 35 centimeters by mid century,

722
00:35:02.250 --> 00:35:05.350
a meter to a meter and half by the end of the century.

723
00:35:05.350 --> 00:35:06.890
The crossover point I mentioned,

724
00:35:06.890 --> 00:35:08.320
where we might start to have

725
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:10.800
an increased vulnerability of our islands,

726
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:15.200
will basically be reached potentially by mid-century.

727
00:35:15.200 --> 00:35:19.950
And that could happen at anywhere from about, yeah,

728
00:35:19.950 --> 00:35:23.650
slightly over half a meter to slightly under a full meter.

729
00:35:23.650 --> 00:35:27.180
Severe storms and associated waves, we've already seen,

730
00:35:27.180 --> 00:35:29.920
it doesn't take very many severe storms

731
00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:31.060
passing through the Monument

732
00:35:31.060 --> 00:35:33.450
to cause a tremendous amount of damage.

733
00:35:33.450 --> 00:35:36.780
And we are seeing storms tracking further western.

734
00:35:36.780 --> 00:35:39.560
Changes in precipitation, it's hard to predict,

735
00:35:39.560 --> 00:35:43.060
however, a warmer atmosphere does hold more water.

736
00:35:43.060 --> 00:35:46.490
So the likelihood is that you're probably going to pick up

737
00:35:46.490 --> 00:35:50.330
larger episodic localized rainfall events,

738
00:35:50.330 --> 00:35:54.380
but your overall trend, could potentially be drier.

739
00:35:54.380 --> 00:35:56.540
It's just now and then you may get drowned

740
00:35:56.540 --> 00:35:58.220
in the midst of a drought.

741
00:35:58.220 --> 00:36:00.160
And then finally, ocean chemistry,

742
00:36:00.160 --> 00:36:02.960
looks like ocean surface pH will decline

743
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:07.960
down to about 7.9 by 2015, perhaps to 7.7 by 2100,

744
00:36:08.580 --> 00:36:11.110
which creates continuing problems for corals

745
00:36:11.110 --> 00:36:12.993
in terms of our aragonite saturation.

746
00:36:15.610 --> 00:36:16.710
We have question time.

747
00:36:18.070 --> 00:36:23.050
<v Malia>Okay, friend, We are going to be launching a poll.</v>

748
00:36:23.050 --> 00:36:26.190
So what's our question?

749
00:36:26.190 --> 00:36:28.590
Our question is, What is the current average rate

750
00:36:28.590 --> 00:36:30.500
of global sea level rise?

751
00:36:30.500 --> 00:36:34.840
Your choices are 1.5 millimeters per year,

752
00:36:34.840 --> 00:36:39.840
2.75, 3.42 or 4.80.

753
00:36:41.010 --> 00:36:43.990
If you're in full screen, you wanna pop out,

754
00:36:43.990 --> 00:36:47.223
using your control panel, to answer this question.

755
00:36:48.140 --> 00:36:51.730
So go ahead and submit your answers.

756
00:36:51.730 --> 00:36:53.900
Let's see how many of you were paying attention

757
00:36:53.900 --> 00:36:54.950
with all of this wonderful,

758
00:36:54.950 --> 00:36:59.563
this very dense data that Dan is sharing with us.

759
00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:05.320
All right, so we'll give you about five more seconds.

760
00:37:05.320 --> 00:37:09.690
We have about 60% of you have voted

761
00:37:09.690 --> 00:37:13.927
and I am going to close the poll

762
00:37:15.610 --> 00:37:18.917
and let's see what the audience has voted.

763
00:37:23.680 --> 00:37:28.000
Okay, so Dan, we've got a majority of the audience

764
00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:32.970
at 52% indicated 3.42 millimeters a year.

765
00:37:32.970 --> 00:37:34.623
How did our audience do?

766
00:37:35.660 --> 00:37:38.012
<v ->They did well, that means half of them were listening.</v>

767
00:37:38.012 --> 00:37:41.100
(Dan laughs)

768
00:37:41.100 --> 00:37:41.980
No, that's great.

769
00:37:41.980 --> 00:37:44.440
It is correct, 3.42 millimeters per year,

770
00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:46.790
which averages out to about a meter of sea level rise

771
00:37:46.790 --> 00:37:48.340
over the course of the century.

772
00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:51.213
Okay, we'll continue.

773
00:37:52.310 --> 00:37:54.860
Okay, I've showed you all the bad things that could be,

774
00:37:54.860 --> 00:37:58.210
or are happening to the Monument because of climate change.

775
00:37:58.210 --> 00:37:59.813
So what can we do about it?

776
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:04.420
Well, back in 2007,

777
00:38:04.420 --> 00:38:06.810
about a year after the Monument had been created

778
00:38:06.810 --> 00:38:10.880
by President Bush, the co-trustee agencies

779
00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:12.327
developed a Monument management plan,

780
00:38:12.327 --> 00:38:14.150
and it should be mentioned that

781
00:38:14.150 --> 00:38:16.430
the management of the Monument is unusual,

782
00:38:16.430 --> 00:38:20.980
in that it is co-managed by two federal agencies,

783
00:38:20.980 --> 00:38:24.740
NOAA and The Department of Interior and the State of Hawaii.

784
00:38:24.740 --> 00:38:27.040
And within those three entities,

785
00:38:27.040 --> 00:38:30.360
there are seven total different programs

786
00:38:30.360 --> 00:38:33.730
that are represented on a Monument management board.

787
00:38:33.730 --> 00:38:37.010
So we have an interesting co-management arrangement here,

788
00:38:37.010 --> 00:38:40.130
where a variety of voices are heard.

789
00:38:40.130 --> 00:38:42.070
And this plan was developed,

790
00:38:42.070 --> 00:38:46.650
it's actually five volumes long, it's available online,

791
00:38:46.650 --> 00:38:48.310
if you really want to read it,

792
00:38:48.310 --> 00:38:50.960
it's fairly dense and it covers just about everything.

793
00:38:50.960 --> 00:38:54.090
But the one thing it did not cover was climate change.

794
00:38:54.090 --> 00:38:56.570
Because back in 2007,

795
00:38:56.570 --> 00:38:59.170
politically climate change was not something

796
00:38:59.170 --> 00:39:02.820
that we were encouraged to address or talk about.

797
00:39:02.820 --> 00:39:06.190
However, by 2010 things had changed both politically

798
00:39:06.190 --> 00:39:08.550
and in terms of our recognition of the problem,

799
00:39:08.550 --> 00:39:11.173
and it was evident that this had to be corrected.

800
00:39:12.200 --> 00:39:15.443
So the co-trustee agencies made a statement

801
00:39:15.443 --> 00:39:17.100
that climate change was actually,

802
00:39:17.100 --> 00:39:21.830
the most significant threat to the overall integrity

803
00:39:21.830 --> 00:39:25.360
of Papahānaumokuākea as a protected area.

804
00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:28.770
The other major item in the running was invasive species,

805
00:39:28.770 --> 00:39:31.943
which a line on a map also doesn't stop, we found out.

806
00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:36.330
So in 2011, a steering committee was formed

807
00:39:36.330 --> 00:39:38.460
to develop a climate change action plan

808
00:39:38.460 --> 00:39:40.650
that would contain an adaptation strategies

809
00:39:40.650 --> 00:39:42.290
for the Monument.

810
00:39:42.290 --> 00:39:44.180
This steering committee had 13 members

811
00:39:44.180 --> 00:39:46.470
and we met twice a month for five months

812
00:39:46.470 --> 00:39:48.270
and came up with an options paper

813
00:39:48.270 --> 00:39:50.630
that identified key impacts

814
00:39:50.630 --> 00:39:53.170
and potential responsive actions.

815
00:39:53.170 --> 00:39:55.060
However, that was just our view.

816
00:39:55.060 --> 00:39:56.960
And so rather than succumb to group thing,

817
00:39:56.960 --> 00:40:01.780
we then convened a series of expert workshops

818
00:40:01.780 --> 00:40:04.170
that would have people review our findings,

819
00:40:04.170 --> 00:40:07.430
have a look at research and monitoring strategies,

820
00:40:07.430 --> 00:40:09.790
assess the potential impact,

821
00:40:09.790 --> 00:40:13.640
consider what management responses we could implement

822
00:40:13.640 --> 00:40:17.560
and how we could engage diverse audiences in doing all this.

823
00:40:17.560 --> 00:40:19.280
The first workshop was in 2012,

824
00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:23.640
it had 30 different natural resource managers,

825
00:40:23.640 --> 00:40:26.193
cultural practitioners, academic scientists

826
00:40:26.193 --> 00:40:29.400
with expertise across a wide variety of fields.

827
00:40:29.400 --> 00:40:31.140
NOAA was kind enough to support it

828
00:40:31.140 --> 00:40:33.560
through the Coral Reef Conservation Program.

829
00:40:33.560 --> 00:40:36.483
And they came up with a draft climate change action plan.

830
00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:40.700
We then took this into another workshop in 2013

831
00:40:40.700 --> 00:40:44.090
with a larger group of 50 managers, cultural practitioners

832
00:40:44.090 --> 00:40:47.080
and scientists, whose job was to review that plan

833
00:40:47.080 --> 00:40:48.980
and then suggest strategies

834
00:40:48.980 --> 00:40:51.480
by how we could actually implement

835
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:53.403
the actions that we proposed.

836
00:40:55.960 --> 00:40:58.280
This was then distilled down into

837
00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:01.700
a draft action plan for consideration by

838
00:41:01.700 --> 00:41:04.370
the Monument management board, the MMB,

839
00:41:04.370 --> 00:41:07.310
they got this in April of 2015,

840
00:41:07.310 --> 00:41:09.890
they then went through a review and comment phase.

841
00:41:09.890 --> 00:41:14.363
And we had a final draft by around 2016, early 2016.

842
00:41:15.530 --> 00:41:17.380
Okay, what did this plan propose?

843
00:41:17.380 --> 00:41:19.770
Well, among other things it said,

844
00:41:19.770 --> 00:41:23.720
you need a pretty good instrumentation and data plan,

845
00:41:23.720 --> 00:41:26.070
so that you can implement research and monitoring.

846
00:41:26.070 --> 00:41:28.460
You need to understand what's going on up there.

847
00:41:28.460 --> 00:41:29.780
And as of course I've pointed out,

848
00:41:29.780 --> 00:41:32.370
we still have some significant data gaps,

849
00:41:32.370 --> 00:41:35.600
particularly in terms of terrestrial, climate variables,

850
00:41:35.600 --> 00:41:38.380
like air temperature and precipitation.

851
00:41:38.380 --> 00:41:41.100
You need to implement appropriate adaptive actions,

852
00:41:41.100 --> 00:41:42.510
to the extent possible.

853
00:41:42.510 --> 00:41:44.080
But climate change is sort of like a big hammer

854
00:41:44.080 --> 00:41:45.140
that hits you over the head

855
00:41:45.140 --> 00:41:46.910
and it's pretty hard to make it stop.

856
00:41:46.910 --> 00:41:49.380
But the one thing you can do is you can monitor the status

857
00:41:49.380 --> 00:41:52.770
and trends of your key ecosystems and species.

858
00:41:52.770 --> 00:41:55.210
You can determine what sorts of activities

859
00:41:55.210 --> 00:41:56.540
that you might consider permitting

860
00:41:56.540 --> 00:41:59.090
or not permitting at particular sites

861
00:41:59.090 --> 00:42:00.460
that are either being impacted,

862
00:42:00.460 --> 00:42:03.590
are becoming more sensitive to the climate change actions.

863
00:42:03.590 --> 00:42:05.580
And then even more controversially,

864
00:42:05.580 --> 00:42:07.910
you can consider whether in the future you might take

865
00:42:07.910 --> 00:42:11.770
direct actions to restore lost reefs or islets,

866
00:42:11.770 --> 00:42:14.030
through engineering solutions

867
00:42:14.030 --> 00:42:17.123
or other sorts of interventions like replanting coral.

868
00:42:18.150 --> 00:42:19.210
You also have to account

869
00:42:19.210 --> 00:42:21.170
for climate change in your operations

870
00:42:21.170 --> 00:42:23.490
because as you saw the airstrip you have today

871
00:42:23.490 --> 00:42:26.140
may not be the airstrip you have in 20 years.

872
00:42:26.140 --> 00:42:28.453
Your shorelines are clearly going to change.

873
00:42:29.320 --> 00:42:33.530
So just assuming that you can go about business as usual

874
00:42:33.530 --> 00:42:37.543
in a logistical way is not a very good assumption.

875
00:42:38.540 --> 00:42:41.020
We of course, also wanted to be part of regional

876
00:42:41.020 --> 00:42:43.470
and national efforts to raise awareness about the problem,

877
00:42:43.470 --> 00:42:45.490
because the more people who understand this,

878
00:42:45.490 --> 00:42:47.870
the closer we might be to policy solutions

879
00:42:47.870 --> 00:42:50.350
and we wanted to serve as an international example

880
00:42:50.350 --> 00:42:51.950
of how this stuff could be done.

881
00:42:53.944 --> 00:42:57.100
The revised plan went to the board in April, 2016.

882
00:42:57.100 --> 00:42:59.430
The federal agencies all approved it.

883
00:42:59.430 --> 00:43:01.220
The state of Hawaii had some additional

884
00:43:01.220 --> 00:43:05.670
public process aspects that needed to be dealt with.

885
00:43:05.670 --> 00:43:07.410
But the bulk of the plan,

886
00:43:07.410 --> 00:43:10.660
except for the proposed actions, was then published

887
00:43:10.660 --> 00:43:13.240
as a peer-reviewed Vulnerability Assessment

888
00:43:13.240 --> 00:43:17.520
in the NOAA science in the sanctuaries series in 2016.

889
00:43:17.520 --> 00:43:20.930
And here it is, you can find this online.

890
00:43:20.930 --> 00:43:23.430
And so everything I've just been telling you

891
00:43:23.430 --> 00:43:26.943
is covered in far more detail in this document.

892
00:43:27.780 --> 00:43:30.530
It contains most of the information in this talk

893
00:43:30.530 --> 00:43:31.790
and it forms the basis

894
00:43:31.790 --> 00:43:34.380
for the actual climate change action plan,

895
00:43:34.380 --> 00:43:36.340
which is still in the process of finalization.

896
00:43:36.340 --> 00:43:38.940
You see, well, what's taking so long?

897
00:43:38.940 --> 00:43:42.800
Okay, we had the plan in place in June of 2016.

898
00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:45.400
If you'll recall something else happened

899
00:43:45.400 --> 00:43:48.770
in November of 2016, we had an election

900
00:43:48.770 --> 00:43:53.420
and suddenly the political climate regarding climate change

901
00:43:53.420 --> 00:43:55.190
changed very dramatically.

902
00:43:55.190 --> 00:43:58.103
And so we essentially lost about four years.

903
00:44:00.260 --> 00:44:02.560
Question number two, it's question time again.

904
00:44:05.895 --> 00:44:07.245
<v Malia>Okay, here we go.</v>

905
00:44:08.210 --> 00:44:10.590
So, a pool of warmer than average water

906
00:44:10.590 --> 00:44:12.980
in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific

907
00:44:12.980 --> 00:44:16.260
is typical of which ENSO state?

908
00:44:16.260 --> 00:44:17.930
So go ahead and log your vote.

909
00:44:17.930 --> 00:44:22.930
Is it La Nina, El Nino or the ENSO neutral.

910
00:44:23.120 --> 00:44:25.840
So let's see about 40% of you have voted,

911
00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:29.200
we'll do about five more seconds,

912
00:44:29.200 --> 00:44:32.220
give you a chance to log in your vote,

913
00:44:32.220 --> 00:44:34.700
and let's see what that pool

914
00:44:34.700 --> 00:44:38.953
of warmer than average water is typical of.

915
00:44:39.810 --> 00:44:43.420
All right, I'm gonna close down the poll

916
00:44:43.420 --> 00:44:47.500
and let's see what our audience members have voted.

917
00:44:49.610 --> 00:44:54.610
So 83% voted that it is El Nino,

918
00:44:54.990 --> 00:44:57.450
are the results correct, Dan?

919
00:44:57.450 --> 00:44:58.420
<v ->Yeah, They're right.</v>

920
00:44:58.420 --> 00:45:00.380
And that's great because I didn't even go

921
00:45:00.380 --> 00:45:02.010
over El Nino that heavily.

922
00:45:02.010 --> 00:45:04.670
So it means they've obviously been tracking this

923
00:45:04.670 --> 00:45:06.110
independent of just my talk.

924
00:45:06.110 --> 00:45:07.440
Yes, it's El Nino.

925
00:45:07.440 --> 00:45:11.450
When we have warmer water in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific.

926
00:45:11.450 --> 00:45:14.700
Right now, we actually happen to be in La Nina.

927
00:45:14.700 --> 00:45:16.720
So we've had cooler than average water.

928
00:45:16.720 --> 00:45:19.320
And as you'll see, we're trending into ENSO neutral.

929
00:45:20.290 --> 00:45:23.610
Okay, where are we today?

930
00:45:23.610 --> 00:45:26.380
As I mentioned, we sort of lost a few years

931
00:45:26.380 --> 00:45:30.330
when the political winds shifted after 2016.

932
00:45:30.330 --> 00:45:32.450
However, we now have an administration

933
00:45:32.450 --> 00:45:35.030
that takes climate change very seriously.

934
00:45:35.030 --> 00:45:36.560
And the board is dusting off

935
00:45:36.560 --> 00:45:37.990
that climate change action plan.

936
00:45:37.990 --> 00:45:39.860
We need to update the science a little bit,

937
00:45:39.860 --> 00:45:42.600
but all the basic issues haven't gone away.

938
00:45:42.600 --> 00:45:45.430
We still face problems with rising temperatures,

939
00:45:45.430 --> 00:45:48.340
with sea level rise, with changing ocean chemistry,

940
00:45:48.340 --> 00:45:49.290
et cetera.

941
00:45:49.290 --> 00:45:52.250
And so now finally, it looks like we've got some momentum

942
00:45:52.250 --> 00:45:55.110
going to perhaps finalize that plan

943
00:45:55.110 --> 00:45:57.060
and put it into motion.

944
00:45:57.060 --> 00:45:59.580
In the meantime, here we are right now,

945
00:45:59.580 --> 00:46:01.890
this is where we were in the world

946
00:46:01.890 --> 00:46:03.447
from January to July of this year.

947
00:46:03.447 --> 00:46:07.180
And remember I mentioned that July was the hottest month

948
00:46:07.180 --> 00:46:11.530
ever recorded during any time from 1880 to now.

949
00:46:11.530 --> 00:46:14.220
Okay, well, you can see we're in an interesting spot

950
00:46:14.220 --> 00:46:15.300
in the Hawaiian Islands,

951
00:46:15.300 --> 00:46:17.530
because we've got cooler than average temperatures

952
00:46:17.530 --> 00:46:19.080
down here in the mains.

953
00:46:19.080 --> 00:46:21.440
And in fact, it's been for the first time in years

954
00:46:21.440 --> 00:46:23.400
or rather pleasant summer.

955
00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:26.430
Whereas up in the northwestern or ends up in the Monument,

956
00:46:26.430 --> 00:46:27.640
we actually are running

957
00:46:27.640 --> 00:46:31.180
several degrees Celsius warmer than average.

958
00:46:31.180 --> 00:46:35.600
And if you wanna look at that in the context of how much

959
00:46:35.600 --> 00:46:38.000
you'll see that the main ones islands are anywhere

960
00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:40.260
from near average to slightly over,

961
00:46:40.260 --> 00:46:42.110
we're running much warmer than average,

962
00:46:42.110 --> 00:46:45.400
by the time you get up into the Monument proper.

963
00:46:45.400 --> 00:46:48.010
So we are a little warm up there this year,

964
00:46:48.010 --> 00:46:52.090
in terms of your general ocean temperatures

965
00:46:53.000 --> 00:46:54.960
and air temperatures.

966
00:46:54.960 --> 00:46:56.740
You'll notice that one little,

967
00:46:56.740 --> 00:46:59.180
kind of cool pixel down there, over Texas,

968
00:46:59.180 --> 00:47:01.900
because that's still the lingering signature

969
00:47:01.900 --> 00:47:06.160
of that polar vortex freeze out that they had in the spring.

970
00:47:06.160 --> 00:47:10.523
And even a record hot July, couldn't erase that footprint.

971
00:47:11.450 --> 00:47:13.870
Okay, degree heating weeks are how we take look

972
00:47:13.870 --> 00:47:16.333
at how much heat is accumulating in the ocean.

973
00:47:17.300 --> 00:47:20.790
And you can see on this plot, this is from coral reef watch

974
00:47:20.790 --> 00:47:23.570
that the heat is mostly concentrated up north.

975
00:47:23.570 --> 00:47:25.460
Well, I told you the Arctic is warming faster

976
00:47:25.460 --> 00:47:27.050
than any other part of the planet.

977
00:47:27.050 --> 00:47:29.160
And of course this is summer in the Northern Hemisphere,

978
00:47:29.160 --> 00:47:32.590
so you wouldn't be accumulated beat down in the Southern,

979
00:47:32.590 --> 00:47:34.180
but here in the Northern Hemisphere,

980
00:47:34.180 --> 00:47:36.750
you can see that most of the heat works north of us

981
00:47:36.750 --> 00:47:38.530
by a fair degree, okay?

982
00:47:38.530 --> 00:47:42.010
It's up there in the big bite below Alaska,

983
00:47:42.010 --> 00:47:45.930
between us and British Columbia and the Bering Sea.

984
00:47:45.930 --> 00:47:49.150
So we're not actually where the heat is.

985
00:47:49.150 --> 00:47:51.350
And that's a good thing.

986
00:47:51.350 --> 00:47:52.540
If you wanna take a look at it

987
00:47:52.540 --> 00:47:55.040
in terms of global sea surface temperature anomalies,

988
00:47:55.040 --> 00:47:57.840
in other words, how much hotter is the sea surface

989
00:47:57.840 --> 00:48:00.450
than it should be, then you can see that once again,

990
00:48:00.450 --> 00:48:02.510
there's a nice hot red bullseye up there

991
00:48:02.510 --> 00:48:04.910
between Hawaii and Alaska,

992
00:48:04.910 --> 00:48:07.930
but the Monument kind of runs through that yellow area

993
00:48:07.930 --> 00:48:12.500
between that and the warm water coming across

994
00:48:12.500 --> 00:48:15.080
and the Kuroshio Current from Japan.

995
00:48:15.080 --> 00:48:17.460
So the take home message here is that

996
00:48:17.460 --> 00:48:22.220
on this particular year, we're not actually warming up

997
00:48:22.220 --> 00:48:24.270
as badly as we have in some previous years.

998
00:48:24.270 --> 00:48:27.220
And this is your sea surface temperature block from March.

999
00:48:27.220 --> 00:48:30.900
Now, it's not really hot in the Monument in March

1000
00:48:30.900 --> 00:48:32.140
because you're coming out of winter,

1001
00:48:32.140 --> 00:48:35.480
but you can see we were running perhaps four degrees C

1002
00:48:35.480 --> 00:48:37.120
warmer than we should have gone.

1003
00:48:37.120 --> 00:48:39.640
And this was a cause for some concern coming into summer

1004
00:48:39.640 --> 00:48:43.150
because you built on this, this is a setup for bleaching.

1005
00:48:43.150 --> 00:48:46.420
You can see that by contrast down by the big island,

1006
00:48:46.420 --> 00:48:49.230
by Hilo, we were actually running cooler.

1007
00:48:49.230 --> 00:48:54.110
All right, fortunately, by the time we got to last week,

1008
00:48:54.110 --> 00:48:56.500
a lot of that anomaly had abated.

1009
00:48:56.500 --> 00:48:59.010
We're only about a degree warmer than we ought to be.

1010
00:48:59.010 --> 00:49:02.410
This is not going to be enough to bleach our corals

1011
00:49:02.410 --> 00:49:03.790
and NOAA agrees with this.

1012
00:49:03.790 --> 00:49:07.480
This is their 90% stress level probability chart.

1013
00:49:07.480 --> 00:49:10.930
You can see that at the worst,

1014
00:49:10.930 --> 00:49:12.910
we have a probability of reaching

1015
00:49:12.910 --> 00:49:15.780
a warning level of Midway by fall,

1016
00:49:15.780 --> 00:49:18.560
but warning isn't bleaching and my thought is that

1017
00:49:18.560 --> 00:49:20.930
we're simply not going to build up thermal inertia

1018
00:49:20.930 --> 00:49:23.710
to have a problem in the Monument this year.

1019
00:49:23.710 --> 00:49:26.510
But you can see the islands are trailing up there,

1020
00:49:26.510 --> 00:49:28.380
we're right in that little sweet spot

1021
00:49:28.380 --> 00:49:31.613
between two areas of higher stress.

1022
00:49:33.420 --> 00:49:36.300
If you look at precipitation, you can see we've been dry.

1023
00:49:36.300 --> 00:49:38.070
It's been a dry summer this year.

1024
00:49:38.070 --> 00:49:43.060
La Ninas often create wet cool winters,

1025
00:49:43.060 --> 00:49:45.900
whereas El Ninos create winter drought.

1026
00:49:45.900 --> 00:49:47.800
Well, we'll see what happens this coming winter,

1027
00:49:47.800 --> 00:49:49.060
but at least for now,

1028
00:49:49.060 --> 00:49:51.240
we've had a very dry summer in the islands.

1029
00:49:51.240 --> 00:49:54.440
And that pattern probably is also reflected

1030
00:49:54.440 --> 00:49:55.927
up in the Monument.

1031
00:49:57.210 --> 00:49:58.940
And then looking forward, you can see,

1032
00:49:58.940 --> 00:50:03.033
this is your model ensemble of climate models.

1033
00:50:04.010 --> 00:50:07.290
If you're below the black horizontal line, you're in La Nina

1034
00:50:07.290 --> 00:50:08.730
if you're above it, you're in El Nino,

1035
00:50:08.730 --> 00:50:11.410
and if you're on the line, you're basically ENSO neutral.

1036
00:50:11.410 --> 00:50:13.626
You can see we were in La Nina,

1037
00:50:13.626 --> 00:50:16.580
we are basically trending back under most models

1038
00:50:16.580 --> 00:50:19.920
to ENSO neutral into the winter and next spring.

1039
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:22.580
And once again, this is a fairly benign place to be

1040
00:50:22.580 --> 00:50:26.310
because we tend to have a lower incidence of hurricanes

1041
00:50:26.310 --> 00:50:28.430
and La Nina and ENSO neutral,

1042
00:50:28.430 --> 00:50:30.680
and we had tend to have less coral bleaching.

1043
00:50:32.260 --> 00:50:34.930
So these are our current conditions.

1044
00:50:34.930 --> 00:50:37.910
We started out cooler than the record hot 2020,

1045
00:50:37.910 --> 00:50:40.563
although after July, we're trying to catch up.

1046
00:50:41.490 --> 00:50:43.860
This was due to that displace polar vortex pattern

1047
00:50:43.860 --> 00:50:45.680
in the late winter and spring.

1048
00:50:45.680 --> 00:50:48.190
But the Northern Pacific did carry

1049
00:50:48.190 --> 00:50:50.450
excess heat content through the winter

1050
00:50:50.450 --> 00:50:52.260
in the northeast of the Monument.

1051
00:50:52.260 --> 00:50:55.170
Fortunately that simply didn't come down to effect us.

1052
00:50:55.170 --> 00:50:58.120
La Nina conditions are waning, we are going to ENSO neutral,

1053
00:50:58.120 --> 00:51:01.310
that's probably going to continue through the winter

1054
00:51:02.680 --> 00:51:05.860
and that's fine, that won't cause any huge problems.

1055
00:51:05.860 --> 00:51:09.390
There is a possibility of some minor thermal stress,

1056
00:51:09.390 --> 00:51:11.580
the Monument reefs by late summer to early fall,

1057
00:51:11.580 --> 00:51:14.080
that's when we max out our thermal inertia.

1058
00:51:14.080 --> 00:51:17.210
But really it's unlikely that that carry over heat

1059
00:51:17.210 --> 00:51:20.230
is going to cause any real problems for the corals.

1060
00:51:20.230 --> 00:51:23.230
Tropical cyclone formation is generally low during a La Nina

1061
00:51:24.870 --> 00:51:27.340
and it's not heavily favored during ENSO neutral

1062
00:51:27.340 --> 00:51:29.880
and this year we haven't had anything really kind of close.

1063
00:51:29.880 --> 00:51:33.200
Although we may have on one ground, give us a bit of rain,

1064
00:51:33.200 --> 00:51:34.890
this coming weekend.

1065
00:51:34.890 --> 00:51:37.330
And finally, sea level rise continues to rise

1066
00:51:37.330 --> 00:51:38.580
three to five millimeters a year.

1067
00:51:38.580 --> 00:51:41.240
That's a problem that is not going away.

1068
00:51:41.240 --> 00:51:43.140
And in fact it may increase

1069
00:51:43.140 --> 00:51:46.140
depending on what happens with land-based ice

1070
00:51:46.140 --> 00:51:47.530
in Greenland and Antarctica,

1071
00:51:47.530 --> 00:51:50.130
because thermal expansion of the oceans

1072
00:51:50.130 --> 00:51:51.560
will continue to pace.

1073
00:51:51.560 --> 00:51:54.010
And so a lot of the additional rise

1074
00:51:54.010 --> 00:51:56.210
would probably be for land-based ice sheets.

1075
00:51:57.210 --> 00:52:00.970
So how do we adapt to climate change?

1076
00:52:00.970 --> 00:52:04.090
Part of it is simply by monitoring these vital signs

1077
00:52:04.090 --> 00:52:07.400
on a quarterly basis, providing reports to the board

1078
00:52:07.400 --> 00:52:08.310
and to be quite honest,

1079
00:52:08.310 --> 00:52:10.663
hoping we dodged bullets like we are this year.

1080
00:52:12.380 --> 00:52:13.730
Here's an interesting fact.

1081
00:52:14.580 --> 00:52:17.050
If you are age 30 or younger

1082
00:52:17.050 --> 00:52:18.850
and you are listening to this talk,

1083
00:52:18.850 --> 00:52:20.480
there has been no month in your life,

1084
00:52:20.480 --> 00:52:23.120
that has had below average global temperatures

1085
00:52:23.120 --> 00:52:25.960
based on records from 1880 to the present.

1086
00:52:25.960 --> 00:52:29.020
So if you are 30 or younger, congratulations,

1087
00:52:29.020 --> 00:52:31.763
you are at least in this regard above average,

1088
00:52:33.660 --> 00:52:36.020
the bottom line to take away on all this

1089
00:52:36.020 --> 00:52:38.973
is isolation is no defense.

1090
00:52:40.200 --> 00:52:43.430
Papahānaumokuākea is out there

1091
00:52:43.430 --> 00:52:45.780
in the middle of the Northeast Pacific.

1092
00:52:45.780 --> 00:52:47.910
It is basically as protected as it can be

1093
00:52:47.910 --> 00:52:49.810
from most major coral reef stressors,

1094
00:52:49.810 --> 00:52:53.750
such as over fishing, land-based sources of pollution,

1095
00:52:53.750 --> 00:52:56.460
over tourism, et cetera.

1096
00:52:56.460 --> 00:53:00.050
However, that still hasn't kept us from experiencing

1097
00:53:00.050 --> 00:53:03.640
rising seas, island over wash, rising ocean temperatures,

1098
00:53:03.640 --> 00:53:07.570
coral bleaching, an increased incidence of severe storms

1099
00:53:07.570 --> 00:53:10.030
and all these things will continue to happen,

1100
00:53:10.030 --> 00:53:14.040
because the only real solution to these symptoms

1101
00:53:14.040 --> 00:53:17.610
is to address the underlying causes of climate change.

1102
00:53:17.610 --> 00:53:20.830
And at the moment we simply have not developed a political

1103
00:53:20.830 --> 00:53:24.723
and social will as a country or as a planet to do so.

1104
00:53:25.970 --> 00:53:27.260
So the future is here.

1105
00:53:27.260 --> 00:53:30.143
The real question is how do we manage for it?

1106
00:53:31.530 --> 00:53:33.573
And with that, I'll take questions.

1107
00:53:37.960 --> 00:53:38.997
<v ->Okay, thank you so much.</v>

1108
00:53:38.997 --> 00:53:42.360
And my hats off to you for fitting that much information

1109
00:53:42.360 --> 00:53:44.253
in the short period of time we have.

1110
00:53:45.970 --> 00:53:49.110
Really appreciate the amount you were able to share,

1111
00:53:49.110 --> 00:53:50.430
we have a ton of a question.

1112
00:53:50.430 --> 00:53:52.240
So, as I mentioned earlier,

1113
00:53:52.240 --> 00:53:53.940
most of these we're gonna have to,

1114
00:53:54.860 --> 00:53:56.450
Dan respond to via email

1115
00:53:56.450 --> 00:53:58.520
and we'll send them out to everybody,

1116
00:53:58.520 --> 00:53:59.700
but why don't we start

1117
00:53:59.700 --> 00:54:02.350
with one of the early questions that came in.

1118
00:54:02.350 --> 00:54:04.030
How much of climate change is natural

1119
00:54:04.030 --> 00:54:06.273
and how much is caused by humankind?

1120
00:54:07.690 --> 00:54:10.180
<v ->You know, there are long scale.</v>

1121
00:54:10.180 --> 00:54:11.870
So, well I showed you for instance

1122
00:54:11.870 --> 00:54:14.150
the Pacific decadal oscillation.

1123
00:54:14.150 --> 00:54:16.940
I mean, there are cycles that run cooler,

1124
00:54:16.940 --> 00:54:21.140
warmer across the Pacific and in the Atlantic as well.

1125
00:54:21.140 --> 00:54:23.590
However, I think at this point,

1126
00:54:23.590 --> 00:54:26.040
the scientific consensus is that unequivocally

1127
00:54:26.040 --> 00:54:27.450
the majority of climate change

1128
00:54:27.450 --> 00:54:30.250
that we're now seeing as being caused by human activity.

1129
00:54:32.910 --> 00:54:34.890
<v ->And those sites that I shared</v>

1130
00:54:34.890 --> 00:54:37.197
do offer some estimates I believe--

1131
00:54:38.870 --> 00:54:40.720
<v ->Yeah I do look the reason IPCC report.</v>

1132
00:54:40.720 --> 00:54:41.620
That's a good place to go,

1133
00:54:41.620 --> 00:54:43.570
because it just came out two weeks ago.

1134
00:54:45.350 --> 00:54:48.550
<v ->We had another question related to language.</v>

1135
00:54:48.550 --> 00:54:51.780
So it says, Dan you keep using the word certain

1136
00:54:51.780 --> 00:54:54.030
when you were talking about projected values,

1137
00:54:54.980 --> 00:54:57.130
are we certain 100% chance

1138
00:54:57.130 --> 00:55:00.390
or do you mean to say likely to raise?

1139
00:55:00.390 --> 00:55:04.310
<v ->Yeah, no, my mistake on that one,</v>

1140
00:55:04.310 --> 00:55:07.760
there's always a bound of uncertainty around any estimates.

1141
00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:10.920
As I think Niels Bohr once said

1142
00:55:10.920 --> 00:55:12.410
prediction is very difficult,

1143
00:55:12.410 --> 00:55:14.730
especially in regard to the future.

1144
00:55:14.730 --> 00:55:16.930
So no, none of this is certain,

1145
00:55:16.930 --> 00:55:20.080
but I think we have a high degree of confidence

1146
00:55:20.080 --> 00:55:22.050
in many of those projected values

1147
00:55:22.050 --> 00:55:23.400
that I showed in the model.

1148
00:55:24.270 --> 00:55:26.890
<v ->And folks, if you do visit the IPCC report,</v>

1149
00:55:26.890 --> 00:55:28.969
you'll notice that there are statements

1150
00:55:28.969 --> 00:55:30.950
based on degrees of certainty

1151
00:55:30.950 --> 00:55:33.083
based on the amount of research agreement.

1152
00:55:34.010 --> 00:55:36.360
So just take into account.

1153
00:55:36.360 --> 00:55:38.010
Do I have time for one more Andy?

1154
00:55:39.960 --> 00:55:41.883
<v Andy>Yeah, one would be good.</v>

1155
00:55:42.910 --> 00:55:46.570
<v ->Okay, well here's one specific to coral reefs?</v>

1156
00:55:46.570 --> 00:55:49.550
What are the implications for human survival

1157
00:55:49.550 --> 00:55:51.170
regarding coral reef lost?

1158
00:55:51.170 --> 00:55:53.963
Can humanity feed itself without coral reefs?

1159
00:55:54.970 --> 00:55:59.910
<v ->Well, coral reefs obviously are important areas</v>

1160
00:55:59.910 --> 00:56:01.030
in terms of fisheries.

1161
00:56:01.030 --> 00:56:02.910
There's quite a lot of people in the Pacific

1162
00:56:02.910 --> 00:56:05.730
that rely on near shore fisheries that are underpinned

1163
00:56:05.730 --> 00:56:08.100
by healthy coral reef ecosystems.

1164
00:56:08.100 --> 00:56:10.230
Realize also the coral reefs are essentially

1165
00:56:10.230 --> 00:56:13.430
living infrastructure that buffer your coastlines

1166
00:56:13.430 --> 00:56:17.260
from significant impacts from storms and waves and such.

1167
00:56:17.260 --> 00:56:22.143
Okay, so if you lose that and have to rebuild it,

1168
00:56:23.380 --> 00:56:25.170
by using concrete or whatever,

1169
00:56:25.170 --> 00:56:26.750
it's tremendously expensive

1170
00:56:26.750 --> 00:56:28.700
and you still can't do the same job corals do.

1171
00:56:28.700 --> 00:56:30.660
Because corals fix themselves

1172
00:56:30.660 --> 00:56:33.210
rather than you having to go back out and fix them.

1173
00:56:35.800 --> 00:56:38.720
<v ->All right, and we'll get back to, lets see,</v>

1174
00:56:38.720 --> 00:56:42.050
warming holds threats for ocean currents in many locations.

1175
00:56:42.050 --> 00:56:44.720
Are there any ocean current effects anticipated

1176
00:56:44.720 --> 00:56:48.350
for Papahānaumokuākea other than islet?

1177
00:56:48.350 --> 00:56:50.590
<v ->I'm not aware of studies in that regard,</v>

1178
00:56:50.590 --> 00:56:52.180
but doesn't mean they don't exist.

1179
00:56:52.180 --> 00:56:55.520
I think most of that worry has actually centered

1180
00:56:55.520 --> 00:56:56.660
on the Atlantic

1181
00:56:56.660 --> 00:56:59.760
and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation,

1182
00:56:59.760 --> 00:57:03.640
the AMOC, which is essentially the Gulf stream system

1183
00:57:03.640 --> 00:57:06.410
that runs up the east coast of the United States

1184
00:57:06.410 --> 00:57:07.270
and across the Europe.

1185
00:57:07.270 --> 00:57:09.830
I think there's worries that melting of Greenland

1186
00:57:09.830 --> 00:57:12.940
and a creation of a cold pool down south of Greenland

1187
00:57:12.940 --> 00:57:14.950
could disrupt that circulation.

1188
00:57:14.950 --> 00:57:17.580
We don't have anything quite the same in the Pacific,

1189
00:57:17.580 --> 00:57:20.363
but that isn't to say there aren't similar vulnerabilities.

1190
00:57:21.970 --> 00:57:24.360
<v ->All right, and if I could squeeze one more question</v>

1191
00:57:24.360 --> 00:57:25.539
or are we out of time?

1192
00:57:25.539 --> 00:57:28.140
<v ->No, no, we could do one more.</v>

1193
00:57:28.140 --> 00:57:31.230
<v ->So you had a lot of appreciation for your presentation</v>

1194
00:57:31.230 --> 00:57:32.640
the question is, are there areas

1195
00:57:32.640 --> 00:57:35.090
both horizontal vertical inside of PMNM,

1196
00:57:35.090 --> 00:57:37.970
which are more stressed by changes than others

1197
00:57:37.970 --> 00:57:40.450
and whether there're reasons for those differences?

1198
00:57:40.450 --> 00:57:42.050
<v ->Within the Monument, you mean?</v>

1199
00:57:43.040 --> 00:57:46.700
Well, we only have two really high islands.

1200
00:57:46.700 --> 00:57:49.200
We have Nihoa and we have Mokumanamana,

1201
00:57:49.200 --> 00:57:51.090
previously known as an Necker.

1202
00:57:51.090 --> 00:57:53.420
Everything else in the Monument is essentially

1203
00:57:53.420 --> 00:57:57.800
a low lying atoll or a slightly secondarily raised atoll.

1204
00:57:57.800 --> 00:58:01.650
So essentially 10 of our 12 islands are

1205
00:58:01.650 --> 00:58:04.260
at extreme risk from sea level rise,

1206
00:58:04.260 --> 00:58:06.840
if it really does run to a meter and a half

1207
00:58:06.840 --> 00:58:08.140
by the end of the century.

1208
00:58:10.480 --> 00:58:11.512
<v ->Great, thank you all and</v>

1209
00:58:11.512 --> 00:58:13.570
(mumbles)

1210
00:58:13.570 --> 00:58:16.070
<v ->Thank you Dan, for a wonderful talk.</v>

1211
00:58:16.070 --> 00:58:21.070
That was very fascinating and terrifying at the same time,

1212
00:58:21.145 --> 00:58:22.940
(laughs)

1213
00:58:22.940 --> 00:58:26.170
but we really appreciate you joining us today.

1214
00:58:26.170 --> 00:58:29.590
And as a last little tidbit as education,

1215
00:58:29.590 --> 00:58:31.700
that would feel deplete

1216
00:58:31.700 --> 00:58:34.570
if I did not leave you with some thoughts,

1217
00:58:34.570 --> 00:58:35.780
the current thinking around

1218
00:58:35.780 --> 00:58:38.030
what we can do for climate change is that

1219
00:58:38.030 --> 00:58:40.220
although individual actions are great,

1220
00:58:40.220 --> 00:58:43.100
like driving less, flying less, certainly things like that,

1221
00:58:43.100 --> 00:58:44.950
eating lower on the food chain,

1222
00:58:44.950 --> 00:58:47.370
really the big changes that need to happen

1223
00:58:47.370 --> 00:58:49.230
have to happen at country level

1224
00:58:49.230 --> 00:58:50.630
and things like that.

1225
00:58:50.630 --> 00:58:55.630
Switching our energy choices to more renewable sources

1226
00:58:56.080 --> 00:58:58.070
and changes in our manufacturing

1227
00:58:58.070 --> 00:58:58.910
and things like that.

1228
00:58:58.910 --> 00:59:01.950
So what you can do there is certainly keep track of that

1229
00:59:01.950 --> 00:59:04.790
and try to advocate for those at a community

1230
00:59:04.790 --> 00:59:06.550
and a country level,

1231
00:59:06.550 --> 00:59:09.360
and that's really where the changes will take place,

1232
00:59:09.360 --> 00:59:11.540
that need to happen in order for us to

1233
00:59:11.540 --> 00:59:14.500
at least arrest the continued progress

1234
00:59:14.500 --> 00:59:17.330
towards putting more CO2 into the atmosphere.

1235
00:59:17.330 --> 00:59:18.950
So thank you for joining us.

1236
00:59:18.950 --> 00:59:23.950
So this webinar will be archived on our sanctuary site.

1237
00:59:24.790 --> 00:59:28.050
As you can see, there is with our other, sorry,

1238
00:59:28.050 --> 00:59:30.130
with our other presentations,

1239
00:59:30.130 --> 00:59:32.540
we have a whole suite of presentations in there now

1240
00:59:32.540 --> 00:59:34.150
from Papahānaumokuākea.

1241
00:59:34.150 --> 00:59:37.850
So you can practically take a course in Papahānaumokuākea,

1242
00:59:37.850 --> 00:59:39.340
by watching all those.

1243
00:59:39.340 --> 00:59:41.040
They give us about two weeks to put that up,

1244
00:59:41.040 --> 00:59:43.700
we need to caption it for accessibility,

1245
00:59:43.700 --> 00:59:45.460
and then it will be up.

1246
00:59:45.460 --> 00:59:47.650
You will also get a certificate of attendance

1247
00:59:47.650 --> 00:59:49.670
from attending this broadcast

1248
00:59:49.670 --> 00:59:51.750
for an hour's worth of professional development.

1249
00:59:51.750 --> 00:59:54.700
You'll get that in your email by tomorrow, probably,

1250
00:59:54.700 --> 00:59:58.190
and also please join us next month on September 16th,

1251
00:59:58.190 --> 01:00:02.150
when another scientist from Fish and Wildlife Service

1252
01:00:02.150 --> 01:00:05.060
will be really beautiful hopeful message,

1253
01:00:05.060 --> 01:00:08.030
because a lot of the great work that they've been doing

1254
01:00:08.030 --> 01:00:09.410
in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands

1255
01:00:09.410 --> 01:00:12.520
around terrestrial birds has been extremely successful,

1256
01:00:12.520 --> 01:00:14.823
including these wonderful lace and teal,

1257
01:00:15.940 --> 01:00:18.710
it's an endemic bird in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands.

1258
01:00:18.710 --> 01:00:20.133
And so Dr. Sheldon Plentovich

1259
01:00:20.133 --> 01:00:21.830
will be talking to us next month.

1260
01:00:21.830 --> 01:00:23.580
So please sign up for that.

1261
01:00:23.580 --> 01:00:26.080
You're gonna get an email about that soon.

1262
01:00:26.080 --> 01:00:28.950
And also don't forget to take our survey before you leave.

1263
01:00:28.950 --> 01:00:31.820
We really need this information to support these webinars

1264
01:00:31.820 --> 01:00:35.140
and things that we can do that you might,

1265
01:00:35.140 --> 01:00:35.973
that we're not doing,

1266
01:00:35.973 --> 01:00:38.320
that you might want us to be able to present on.

1267
01:00:38.320 --> 01:00:41.730
And lastly, the questions will all be sent off to Dan

1268
01:00:41.730 --> 01:00:43.930
and those that aren't answered he'll to answer those,

1269
01:00:43.930 --> 01:00:45.460
and we'll send them back out to everybody

1270
01:00:45.460 --> 01:00:48.020
who registered for this broadcast.

1271
01:00:48.020 --> 01:00:50.600
So mahalo for joining us today again.

1272
01:00:50.600 --> 01:00:55.600
Mahalo Dan that was excellent and stay safe and take care.

1273
01:00:56.022 --> 01:00:56.855
Aloha.