Saving the Caribbean from the Effects of Climate Change

No matter what you think about Al Gore or the notion of global warming, it's hard to ignore some pretty grim predictions for rising sea levels, water temperatures and carbon dioxide levels — factors that can't be good for fragile ecosystems like the Caribbean's. Fortunately, England's University of Oxford and the Caribbean Community Centre for Climate Change are poised to launch an ambitious initiative aimed at tracking (and, hopefully, altering) the effects of climate change on hundreds of Caribbean islands.

"The Caribbean is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change and one of the most reliant on tourism in the world," says Oxford's Dr. Murray Simpson. "We have designed an approach that manages a huge range of risks and consequences of climate change."

Dubbed CARIBSAVE, the $35-million program will use Eleuthera in the Bahamas (pictured above, from space) and Ocho Rios in Jamaica as testbeds. Researchers plan to analyze weather records from 1961 until 2008 and use that data to predict the Caribbean region's climate-related future — things like rainfall, and sea levels, and the frequency of certain, um, "extreme weather events" — through the year 2100. What's it mean to you? By helping Caribbean nations adapt to the effects of climate change, CARIBSAVE's predictions may save the very things that make this part of the world so extraordinary: gorgeous beaches, lush rainforests, thriving reefs, and the livelihoods of the Caribbean people.

For more info, check out the University of Oxford's release.

Saving the Caribbean from the Effects of Climate Change