Islands that could disappear in your lifetime

    Island vacations are dreams for many tourists, but climate change has lifted ocean temperatures, raised sea levels and worsened storm severity. As a result, some islands are threatened and could disappear in the coming decades.

    Federal States of Micronesia

    2019 Population: 112,640

    The average rate of sea-level rise worldwide has been 3.1 mm per year since 1993. But the rate around Federated States of Micronesia is three times faster. The country is at risk of disappearing because of coastal flooding, erosion, and frequent storms.

Tuvalu

    2019 Population: 11,508.

    Tuvalu is a small chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. For more than 25 years, its representatives have raised alarms that climate change could raise sea levels enough to flood the islands. Even if waters never get that high, Tuvalu could still become uninhabitable as rising sea levels have polluted the nation's groundwater resources with salt.

    Marshall Islands

    2019 Population: 58413

    Residents of Marshall Islands, a chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in the central Pacific Ocean, have known for years that they have to either build new artificial islands to relocate or raise the existing ones.

    Shishmaref Alaska

    2019 Population: 617

    In 2016, people living in Shishmaref, Alaska, located near the Bering Strait, voted to relocate before melting ice and land erosion would forced them to. Alaska had granted the city $8 million toward the move, but officials say it will cost $200 million.