Storm wipes remote Hawaiian East Island off map

For climate scientist Chip Fletcher it was a "holy s... moment".

Just days after one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the Pacific, one remote part of a Hawaiian archipelago was all but gone.

East Island was just over four hectares but was important ecologically.e

The Honolulu Civil Beat states that about 96 per cent of the endangered Hawaiian green sea turtle population nest in French Frigate Shoals, over half of which on East Island.

Satellite images distributed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service show that in just one night, the category 4 Hurricane Walaka all but wiped East Island off the map.

"Oh my God, it's gone," Fletcher told The Honolulu Civil Beat. "It's one more chink in the wall of the network of ecosystem diversity on this planet that is being dismantled.

"This is not surprising when you consider the bad luck of a hurricane going into that vicinity and sea level rise already sort of deemed the stressor in the background for these ecosystems. The probability of occurrences like this goes up with climate change."

Charles Littnan, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's protected species division, told HuffPost that it will take years to assess the ramifications of the island's loss.

"These small, sandy islets are going to really struggle to persist in a warming world with rising seas," Littnan said. "This event is confronting us with what the future could look like."