Five tiny Pacific islands vanish under rising seas, with climate change the suspected culprit

Five tiny Pacific islands have disappeared due to rising seas and erosion, a discovery thought to be the first scientific confirmation of the impact of climate change on coastlines in the Pacific, according to Australian researchers.

The submerged islands were part of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago that over the last two decades has seen annual sea levels rise as much as 10 millimeters, according to research published in the May issue of the online journal Environmental Research Letters.

The missing islands, ranging in size from 1 to 5 hectares, were not inhabited by humans.

But six other islands had large swathes of land washed into the sea and on two of those, entire villages were destroyed and people forced to relocate, the researchers found.

One was Nuatambu Island, home to 25 families, which has had 11 houses and half its inhabitable area lost since 2011, the research said.

The study is the first that scientifically “confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people,” the researchers wrote in separate commentary on an academic website.

The scientists used aerial and satellite images dating back to 1947 of 33 islands as well as traditional knowledge and radiocarbon dating of trees for their findings.