Pacific Islands
-
NASA
An Agricultural Mosaic in Taiwan
About 23 million people live in Taiwan, a Pacific island about the size of Maryland. Despite its size, the island produces a tremendous amount of agricultural goods per year—about $18 billion, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture. The average size of a farm in Taiwan (less than 1 hectare) is much smaller than in the United Kingdom (87 hectares) or the…
Read More » -
NASA
NASA Launching Rockets Into Radio-Disrupting Clouds
NASA is launching rockets from a remote Pacific island to study mysterious, high-altitude cloud-like structures that can disrupt critical communication systems. The mission, called Sporadic-E ElectroDynamics, or SEED, opens its three-week launch window from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Friday, June 13. The atmospheric features SEED is studying are known as Sporadic-E layers, and they create a host…
Read More » -
NASA
NASA Analysis Shows Irreversible Sea Level Rise for Pacific Islands
Climate change is rapidly reshaping a region of the world that’s home to millions of people. In the next 30 years, Pacific Island nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Fiji will experience at least 8 inches (15 centimeters) of sea level rise, according to an analysis by NASA’s sea level change science team. This amount of rise will occur regardless…
Read More »