Adversity triggered by climate change continues to batter the United States. Louisiana will soon evacuate a community of Native Americans whose ancestral homeland called Isle de Jean Charles has almost entirely been swallowed-up the Atlantic Ocean.

Some 98% of the island's 22,000 acres has been lost to sea level rise and sea erosion since 1955. The residents of this island have become America's first official "climate refugees."

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And in Florida, a more acidic ocean (an event ignited by climate change) is dissolving the limestone framework of coral reefs in the upper Florida Keys faster than expected.

For the first time in its history, the federal government has approved a grant to resettle climate refugees. The inhabitants of island, the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians, will be relocated to safer areas. This move will be funded by a first-of-its-kind $48 million grant from the federal government.

Residents will not be forced to move out, however. For those that do opt to stay, the danger is the land will slowly disappear beneath the waves.

This funding is part of grants amounting to $1 billion the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development set aside to assist 13 states build stronger dams, levees and drainage systems to protect communities coping with sea level rise.

Climate change, especially from sea level rise, might displace some 200 million people by 2050, said the United Nations Institute for Environment and Human Security and the International Organization for Migration.

"We can't turn this around," said US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell when asked about the adverse effects of climate change.

"We can stem the increase in temperature. We can stem some of the effect, perhaps, if we act on climate. But the changes are under way and they are very rapid."

A new study on the long-term effects of ocean acidification on the foundation of the reefs reveals the northern part of the Florida Keys reef has lost about 12 pounds per square yard of limestone over the past six years. That loss is equivalent to over six million tons.

The more acidic water eats away at limestone foundation, making them more porous and weaker. This phenomenon is expected to worsen as the ocean becomes more acidic.

TagsClimate Change, United States, Louisiana, Isle de Jean Charles, sle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Florida Keys, ocean acidification