From Maureen Evans, University of Surrey
Teuatabo says: “Many of our atolls are no more than 2 metres above sea level
at the highest point, and cyclones already raise the water higher than that
sometimes.” But surely the reason they are only 2 metres above sea level is
precisely because they are sea-level features: they owe their existence, and
their form, to the interaction between the sea and the reef, and could not, by
this origin, be any higher.
Undoubtedly, they will change in size and position as sea levels change, as
they have changed for many thousands of years under the influence of tides,
currents, and storms. Even the more alarming projections of the rate of
sea-level change would not seem to be swampingly large compared with much
shorter-term changes such as tidal range and storm surges, which these atolls
currently experience, and always have.
