Against all the odds, a number of shape-shifting islands in the middle
of
the Pacific Ocean are standing up to the effects of climate change. For
years, people have warned that the smallest nations on the planet –
island
states that barely rise out of the ocean – face being wiped off the
map by
rising sea levels.
Now the first analysis of the data broadly suggests the opposite: most
have remained stable over the last 60 years, while some have even grown.
Paul
Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at
the
South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji used historical
aerial
photos and high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land
surface of 27 Pacific islands over the last 60 years.
During that time, local sea levels have risen by 120 millimetres, or 2
millimetres per year on average. Despite this, Kench and Webb found that
just
four islands have diminished in size since the 1950s. The area of the
remaining 23 has either stayed the same or grown.
Read more:
http://ow.ly/1U2Pn
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