Newsrooms around the world blamed climate change after a new study spotlighted the disappearance of five islands in the Pacific Ocean, but the study’s author says those reports are exaggerated.

“All these headlines are certainly pushing things a bit towards the ‘climate change has made islands vanish’ angle. I would prefer slightly more moderate titles that focus on sea-level rise being the driver rather than simply ‘climate change’,” one of the report’s chief researchers, Dr. Simon Albert, told the Guardian.