MAKARU ISLAND, Solomon Islands — The first island David Tebaubau moved to 14 years ago has already disappeared, drowned by heaving currents and rising seas.

“It used to be right there,” he told me, pointing east to what simply looked like more ocean. “We thought everything was going to be O.K., but it’s getting very hard.”

The spit of earth he currently occupies here in this remote stretch of the South Pacific is half the size it was when he arrived five years ago. At mid-tide, it’s 24 steps across at its widest point, and 58 steps long (by my own walking count).

At high tide it’s even smaller, a teardrop of sand and coral with just enough room for his family and a few tons of the seaweed they grow offshore.