This paper proposes a novel approach to measuring the progress of small island developing states (SIDS) towards sustainable development (SD) as set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Currently, these goals do not provide adequate guidance on how countries might measure their progress towards sustainability. We use these goals and a subset of their targets to develop an index with concrete targets, through the use of pertinent sustainability indicators, that SIDS should aim to achieve a sustainable society. In addition to the three categorical pillars of SD (social, economic and environmental), we included the category Climate Change and Disaster Management (incorporating Disaster Risk Reduction). The basis of our decision is that the UN and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have both recognized the vulnerability of SIDS to both environmental hazards. Our index scores a total 70 individual indicators for the four categories to track the progress of a SIDS towards a sustainable society. Using the Caribbean nation, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, as our SIDS case study, we report the average of the scores for each category to illustrate its progress towards sustainability. Overall Trinidad and Tobago is slowly progressing towards a more sustainably developed society. Our results show that the nation is only moderately successful regarding progress in three traditional pillars of SD, social, economic and environmental. However, Trinidad and Tobago scores poorly in the Climate Change and Disaster Management category and needs to improve in this area especially due to its vulnerability.

The mid-Holocene was the warmest segment of the current interglacial and possessed a weak latitudinal temperature gradient, which impacted climate teleconnections and thus precipitation variability. Our window into the mid-Holocene climate is a high-resolution (near annual) stalagmite stable isotope-based paleoprecipitation record from Brown’s Cave in West-Central Florida. The oxygen isotopic (δ¹⁸O) time series is tied to a uranium-series (U-series) chronology that covers a 2000-year period from 6.6 to 4.6 ka. We compared our reconstruction with another speleothem δ¹⁸O-derived precipitation record near our study area that spans the last 1600 years. That comparison shows that the mid-Holocene was drier than the last 1.6 millennia. We posit the cause of this aridity was a westward expansion of the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) coupled with changes in the planetary boundary layer in the Gulf of Mexico. Time-series analysis of our oxygen isotopic record found little evidence of any teleconnections originating from the North Atlantic including the North Atlantic Oscillation during the mid-Holocene. However, there is some indication of a weak, quasi-persistent oscillation within the temporal periodicity of the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability.