Daily Mail
"Low-lying islands in the Pacific are 'growing' to counter rising sea levels, a study has found.Scientists feared that many small islands would disappear under rising sea levels caused by climate change.But researchers in New Zealand measured 27 islands where ocean levels have risen 4.8 inches in the past 60 years and found that just four had diminished in size.Coral debris eroded from encircling reefs was pushed up on to the islands' coasts by winds and waves as weather patterns changed.Professor Paul Kench, of Auckland University's environment school, said this showed that islands are coping with the changes.He said: 'It has been thought that as the sea level goes up, islands will sit there and drown. But they won't. The sea level will go up and the island will start responding.'They've always changed, but the consistency [with which] some of them have grown is a little surprising.' Tuvalu, a coral-island group that climate change campaigners have predicted will be drowned, has its highest point just 14 feet above sea level but has actually grown in the past 60 years, the study in New Scientist found.The research, which appeared in this week's New Scientist, found that seven of Tuvalu's nine islands had grown by more than 3 percent on average over the past 60 years."
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