The island of Tuvalu in Micronesia is often held up as the poster child for global warming - after all, the sea level is rising because of it and the island is getting smaller and smaller. We all know this - it fits the narrative right?
Not so much - from Phys Org:
'Sinking' Pacific nation is getting bigger: study
The Pacific nation of Tuvalu—long seen as a prime candidate to disappear as climate change forces up sea levels—is actually growing in size, new research shows.
A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu's nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.
It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu's total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.
Co-author Paul Kench said the research, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications, challenged the assumption that low-lying island nations would be swamped as the sea rose.
"We tend to think of Pacific atolls as static landforms that will simply be inundated as sea levels rise, but there is growing evidence these islands are geologically dynamic and are constantly changing," he said.
"The study findings may seem counter-intuitive, given that (the) sea level has been rising in the region over the past half century, but the dominant mode of change over that time on Tuvalu has been expansion, not erosion."
These islands are made out of coral - spongy porous coral. Of course they are going to grow and shrink. To blame global warming for this natural dynamic behavior is pure misdirection at best and outright obfuscation at the worst.
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