Low-lying Pacific Islands expand, contrary to Al Gore’s claims

Al Gore‘s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, falsely “claimed that rising sea levels from climate change had already forced citizens of low-lying Pacific nations to evacuate to New Zealand. This specific claim was widely disputed and later identified as an error by a British High Court judge.”

Far from disappearing, some low-lying Pacific Islands are expanding. Islands in the Polynesian nation of Tuvalu are one example. “As part of Tuvalu’s ongoing coastal adaptation work, engineers have reportedly expanded the land area of Fongafale, the country’s most populous islet, by more than 10 percent,” reports The Doomslayer.

Tuvalu is a low-lying volcanic archipelago, consisting of three reef islands and six atolls. The highest elevation in all of Tuvalu is only 15 feet.

Tuvalu is not alone. “Hundreds of islands in the Pacific are growing in land size…Scientists at the University of Auckland found atolls in the Pacific nations of Marshall Islands and Kiribati, as well as the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean, have grown up to 8 per cent in size over the past six decades despite sea level rise,” reports ABC News.

Australian media explain how Tuvalu is expanding:

Around Funafuti, giant dredging ships are vacuuming sand from the lagoon floor and pumping it back onto the shoreline, creating entirely new elevated land designed to withstand rising seas.

Australian coastal engineer James Lewis says the project has already expanded Tuvalu’s landmass by more than 10 per cent.

“Satellite research shows that the vast majority of coral atoll islands in nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands have remained stable or even increased in surface size,” notes an AI Overview.

Climate-change researchers predicted back in the 20th Century that coral reefs would disappear by 2050 due to global warming. Marine biologist Ove Hoegh-Gulberg predicted in a widely cited 1999 paper that coral reefs would disappear by 2050.

But many coral reefs are doing fine. At least a tenth of the reefs that are being monitored are showing an increase in coral cover. A very healthy coral reef is nestled among offshore oil platforms.

On the other hand, an even higher number of coral reefs are in decline, at least 40% of those that are being monitored. Some coral reefs are indeed dying, unfortunately. But not so many of them that coral reefs will be gone by 2050.

The world’s coral reefs are more plentiful than previously thought. “High-resolution satellite maps show that coral reefs cover an area of ocean larger than New Mexico,” reported Bloomberg News. That’s about twice the size of some prior estimates. About 42% of the world’s surveyed coral reefs are stable and neither shrinking nor growing.