Marshall Islands: Rising Tides (36 images)

It is hard to imagine a place more vulnerable to the sea than a coral atoll. Barely nudging above the world’s tropical waters, these islands are mere slivers of land, built up over millennia on the coral reefs which crown the now submerged volcanoes. Rarely more than a few metres above the sea level, life clings tentatively to the living reef, the sandy sweep of coast, and tangle of scrubby trees that encircles the central lagoon. Even in stable climate conditions, the survival of...
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It is hard to imagine a place more vulnerable to the sea than a coral atoll. Barely nudging above the world’s tropical waters, these islands are mere slivers of land, built up over millennia on the coral reefs which crown the now submerged volcanoes. Rarely more than a few metres above the sea level, life clings tentatively to the living reef, the sandy sweep of coast, and tangle of scrubby trees that encircles the central lagoon. Even in stable climate conditions, the survival of atolls appears, to the casual observer, to be tentative at best. With the threats of rising sea levels and increasing intensity of tropical storms forecast in current climate change predictions,their continued existence seems little more than a miracle...
http://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2011/04/21/cosmos-change/
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