Laysan Island News

Sailors and Marines from the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) have conducted an emergent recovery of 11 researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from the Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument threatened by Hurricane Iselle. The purpose of the operation was to assist the researchers in retreating from imminent danger of Hurricane Iselle that is expected to impact Lisianski Island, Laysan Island and the Pearl and Hermes Atoll. "We work with NOAA and we're out here almost every summer in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands working with Hawaiian Monk Seal pups doing mostly population assessment," said, Carrie McAttee, a NOAA researcher.

Dynamic modeling of sea-level rise, which takes storm wind and wave action into account, paints a much graver picture for some low-lying Pacific islands under climate-change scenarios than the passive computer modeling used in earlier research, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report. A team led by research oceanographer Curt Storlazzi of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center compared passive "bathtub" inundation models with dynamic models for two of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.