‘The Gathering Storm’: Marshall Islands brace for rising seas

Tune in to the full episode of Compass at 9:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 28, on Al Jazeera America.

MAJURO, Marshall Islands — Far out in the South Pacific, the Marshall Islands ride low above the waves. Spread out over hundreds of miles of ocean, there is very little here that is not beachfront.

For thousands of years, these narrow coral atolls have been safe and welcoming homes to fishers, farmers, master navigators, explorers and canoe builders.

This Sunday on Compass, Sheila MacVicar takes you to an inhabited island that is literally one road wide, with the Pacific on one side and a lagoon on the other, with not much in between.

With climate change a growing concern around the globe, the Marshall Islands may be a harbinger of things to come; as many as 200 million people could be forced to move because of rising seas in the next century.