This year’s first operational dive of Okeanos Explorer has come across the discovery of a new octopod. This is what the National Oceanic and...
Remains of 26 Japanese soldiers of World War II have been recovered from their graves on the Isle of Santo. Tony de Brum, a minister of foreign affairs for the Marshall Islands, said that tides and global warming have caused inundation of islands and flooding of communities.
Tony de Brum added that a severe damage in undermining regular land have also been caused by rising spring tides and global warming. On the 70th anniversary of the storming of Normandy beaches in the D-Day landings, Tony said that his views take into consideration the stark future of low-lying island nations.
More than 1,000 isles covering a population of about 70,000 people are residing on Marshall Islands. During the WWII, the Marshal Islands were used as base by the Japanese navy in the run-up to attack on Pearl Harbor.
As per statistical figures released by UN last week, about four times increase in global warming and sea level have been reported in the tropical western Pacific. About 12 millimeters increase in sea level water has been reported every year between 1993 and 2009. The global sea level rise is expected to increase from 26 centimeters to 98 centimeters by the end of the century.
Currently, the U.S. Navy is testing the skeletons of the soldiers that have been washed away by tides to identify and repatriate them. Earlier, it was believed that the skeletons belonged to Japanese soldiers, but Tony said that broken bones shows no signs for the war casualties.
"The atoll ecosystem is very fragile so that if you have a severe inundation of salt, if it doesn't rain every day for a year, recovery is probably doubtful", said Tony.
