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Hawai'i and Pacific Islands

Hawai'i Coastal Erosion Website

Shorelines are highly variable environments characterized by a number of natural hazards, including tsunami, storm surge, high winds, coastal erosion, sea level rise, and high-wave overtopping. Building on eroding coasts increases vulnerability to all these hazards. A direct step to mitigating the impact of coastal hazards is to exercise avoidance by mapping high-hazard zones. 

A Guide to Assessing Green Infrastructure Costs and Benefits for Flood Reduction

This guide provides a process that communities can use to assess the costs and benefits of green infrastructure to reduce flooding. The framework can be adapted for their own purposes to inform planning-scale assessments and spark discussion about green infrastructure options to mitigate flooding and provide other watershed benefits.

Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) Model

Developed by the National Weather Service, the SLOSH model estimates storm surge heights resulting from historical, hypothetical, or predicted hurricanes by taking into account the atmospheric pressure, size, forward speed, and track data. These parameters are used to create a model of the wind field which drives the storm surge. The model consists of a set of equations derived from the Newtonian equations of motion (shallow water equations) and the continuity equation applied to a rotating fluid with a free surface.

State Climate Summaries

Submitted by emily.greenhalgh on

These state summaries were produced to meet a demand for state-level information in the wake of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment, released in 2014. The summaries cover assessment topics directly related to NOAA’s mission, specifically historical climate variations and trends, future climate model projections of climate conditions during the 21st century, and past and future conditions of sea level and coastal flooding. Click on each state to see key messages, figures, and and a summary of climate impacts in your state.

A Coral Bleaching Story With an Unknown Ending

Coral reefs at risk

Just offshore from many Pacific Islands, coral reefs comprise some of the most biologically rich and economically valuable areas on our planet. Reef ecosystems support an array of striped, spotted, and camouflaged fish; soft-bellied and armored invertebrates; and hundreds of other life forms. Reefs also provide valuable ecosystem services that support island economies.

Recognizing and Responding to Drought on Pacific Islands

An unfulfilled promise of rain

The soil was cracking, the leaves were turning brown, and the groundwater was becoming saltier. Drought had come to the northern atolls of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in January 2013.

“You see that rain out there?” asked meteorologist Chip Guard, looking up at the horizon. “It’s falling from the sky but not hitting the ground. We call that virga. You know where we see virga? In deserts.”

In the Dark of Monday Morning: Waves Inundate a Pacific Island Community

An evacuation notice in the middle of the night

As large waves washed over the seawalls of Majuro in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, March 3, 2014, police banged on residents’ doors, telling them that their properties were flooding and that they needed to evacuate.

“I was in bed at home, as most people were, because it was 3 a.m.,” recalls Angela Saunders, who was awakened by a phone call from a colleague alerting her to the high swells.

Pacific Climate Information System - PaCIS Dashboard

This website serves as a digital version of the quarterly publication, Hawaii and U.S. Pacific Islands Region Climate Impacts and Outlook. Brief updates on recent climate impacts to facilities and infrastructure, water resources, agriculture, natural resources, and public health make it easy to find information of interest. The site features a range of graphic products that show outlooks for the next season.  

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