The atolls have lost another inch, and the monsoon has only just retreated

Scientists at the Maldives Meteorological Service confirmed on Tuesday that mean high-water levels across three outer atolls have risen by a measurable margin since the last dry-season survey — a figure small on paper and enormous in practice for any island that sits a metre above the sea.

The finding, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, arrives at a politically awkward moment for a government whose coastal-defence strategy has been built on a slower curve.

Global sea level is rising at three to four millimetres a year, with acceleration expected; 0.5 to 0.9 metres of rise by 2100 would, the World Bank has estimated, expose more than three per cent of the country's total assets to flood damage during a ten-year storm.