Five Pacific islands disappear into the sea due to climate change Fears that hundreds of low-lying islands across the world will disappear under the sea have escalated after five tiny Pacific […]

Fears that hundreds of low-lying islands across the world will disappear under the sea have escalated after five tiny Pacific islands have been officially vanished from sight.

Part of the Solomon Islands, the submerged land masses are the first Pacific islands to be wiped out by climate change, which is pushing sea levels up by melting the giant ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.

The five submerged reef islands were very small – ranging from 2.5 acres to 12.4 acres – and were not inhabited by humans.

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But they are being seen as the canary in the coalmine for the expected widespread disappearance of low-lying nations across the world.

Furthermore, six other Solomon Islands – an archipelago that has seen sea levels rise by 7mm a year over the past two decades – had large swathes of land washed into the sea.

Some of these were inhabited while on two of the islands, entire villages have been destroyed and people forced to relocate, according to a new report published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

“This is the first scientific evidence, published in Environmental Research Letters, that confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people,” said lead author Simon Albert, writing on the academic website The Conversation.

Nuatambu Island is one of the inhabited islands that has been partially submerged. Home to 25 families, it has lost 11 houses and half its inhabitable area in the past five years. Other people were also forced to move on the island of Nararo.

“The sea has started to come inland, it forced us to move up to the hilltop and rebuild our village there away from the sea,” Sirilo Sutaroti, a 94-year tribal chief who recently abandoned his village in Nararo, told the researchers.