Hawaii is sinking 40 times faster than previously predicted homes and businesses could soon be wiped out

Paradise lost?California isn’t the only coastal oasis that’s at risk of submersion.Scientists have revealed that certain regions on the island of Oahu, Hawaii are sinking into the sea 40 times faster than predicted, which could jeopardize homes and businesses.Conditions have gotten so dire that low-lying areas in Honolulu, Waikiki and Pearl Harbor could be inundated in the coming decades with infrastructure damage projected to cost billions of dollars.“In rapidly subsiding areas, sea level rise impacts will be felt much sooner than previously estimated,” said Kyle Murray, a geophysicist at Honolulu’s University Of Hawaii at Manoa who co-authored the apocalyptic study, which was published in Communications Earth & Environment, according to Earth.com.The team was investigating the effects of sinking land masses amid the surge in rising seas due to climate change, which they felt could combine to cause extreme flooding in Oahu.“Rising sea levels due to climate change are already increasing coastal flood risks in low-lying neighborhoods around Honolulu, and this new study shows that sinking land could significantly amplify those risks,” Dr.

Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central, told the DailyMail.com.To examine this phenomenon, researchers spent nearly twenty years analyzing satellite data from the Hawaiian Islands, “referencing them with Global Navigation Satellite System measurements to calculate subsidence rates,” per the study.The scientists mapped the coastal topography with a high-resolution digital elevation model and then utilized geospatial analysis to record the subtlest shifts in elevation.This allowed the team to devise a model that showed how plunging land coupled with ascending sea levels could exacerbate flooding in certain areas.Hawaiian islands slowly submerge the further they are out from the Big Island — this process has shaped the chain for millions of years — due to their weight and the movement...