Radioactive waste still prevents most former residents from returning to those islands. Even today, test missiles fired from California splash down in Kwajalein's lagoon. The islands would face special danger from global warming because, technically, most of them aren't islands at all. They are atolls, skinny doughnuts of coral with wide lagoons forming the hole. The atolls are so tiny that the Marshalls' total land area is only 69 square miles.
Residents say it is hard to overstate just how flat the atolls are.
Asked about hills on Majuro, businessman Vincent Reimers mentions a sand pile that used to supply construction projects. Elements are winning With no hills to protect the atolls, and waves pounding at them from both sides, the Marshalls are susceptible to erosion. In the past three years, the tides have been higher than usual. In some places, water has eaten the land right up to the asphalt of the roads. Shoreside coconut and pandanus trees have fallen into the ocean.