Climate change is altering the coasts of our planet: washing away sandy beaches, submerging islands and flooding plains. Our analysis of more than 700,000 tidal heights worldwide shows that climate change has long been a reality for the coastlines of the world. Hundreds of millions of people are affected.

Climate change is making the sea level rise along Europe's coasts. But the rising levels vary: 18cm in Nice, 9cm in Copenhagen, both since 1986. In Britain the Medmerry, on the south coast, was the first place to stop reinforcing dykes - returning the land to the sea. Experts say this is a fate awaiting large areas of coastal land in the future.

Every year the sea rises an average of two millimetres globally. Data from South Africa suggests the increase will be much bigger there. Millions of people will lose their homes. But so far only Cape Town has invested in precautionary measures.

At first glance it's a paradox: While globally sea levels are rising, they’re sinking in Scandinavia, Greenland, Canada and Alaska. And also more recently in Iceland.

In the last 50 years the sea level has increased more than 80 centimetres, according to our map. In ten or twenty years coastal areas around the city, home to millions of people, will be permanently underwater, according to research by the University of the Philippines

The delta of the Rio Paraná, just outside Buenos Aires, was once barely populated. That was, until the real estate developers came - and the islands in the wetlands were marketed as luxurious waterfront properties. The consequences were disastrous.

Shondha Rnai’s small island paradise in the Bay of Bengal is threatened by salt. The little fresh water she needs is taken up by shrimp cultivation for the US and Europe.