Tuesday, September 4, 2012

"How long can you tread water?"

By MARK SCIALLA/ecoRI.org News contributor
Portions of the Atlantic Coast are experiencing sea level rise at a rate of three to four times faster than the rest of the planet, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report published this summer in Nature Climate Change.
From Cape Hatteras, N.C., to Boston, scientists have considered this 600–mile coastal stretch a hot spot for sea level rise. Since 1990, sea levels have increased 2 to 3.7 millimeters annually. The report expects sea levels to rise if global temperatures continue to increase.



Rhode Island’s rate of sea level rise is on the lower end of that spectrum, at about 2.7 millimeters a year, according to Janet Freedman, a coastal geologist with the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC).
“The Mid-Atlantic is rising faster than Rhode Island, but we are definitely rising,” Freedman said. “Those long-term trends are about 3.9 millimeters per year.”
Models show rates of sea level rise in the Ocean State accelerating as the global climate warms. The waters of Rhode Island’s coast are expected to rise a foot by or between 2030 and 2050 — it took more than 100 years before today for the sea to rise that much. Sea levels could rise 3 to 5 feet by 2100.
Three to five feet isn’t very high, but with increasingly powerful storms as a result of climate change, seas could rise higher and be more destructive.
“That’s not bad until you have a storm,” Freedman said. “That’s when you have big impacts. I think Rhode Island is going to have to prepare each community more.”
Unlike some states with threatened coastlines such as North Carolina, which forbids coastal planners from using the most up-to-date science, Rhode Island is taking proactive steps to prepare for a rising sea.
“The Department of Transportation is doing a study of some of the detailed maps to do a road and infrastructure analysis,” said Pam Rubinoff, a coastal management specialist at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography.
Rhode Island has 2,705 buildings below a meter below sea level, and several coastal wastewater facilities are at risk, according to Rubinoff. Since 2008, Rhode Island has had a policy that CRMC planning should consider a 3- to 5-foot sea level rise by 2100. The General Assembly also added a provision in the Land Use Act that requires communities to come up with an element that addresses the hazards of sea level rise.
Rhode Island also has strict building regulations that determine how and where to build in coastal areas. The rules require buildings in coastal flood zones to be built higher than federal requirements. Older houses aren’t subject to the same codes.
While state agencies and nonprofits such as Save The Bay are taking proactive steps to prepare Rhode Island communities for the future, Rubinoff said it will also take individuals, homeowners, community members and business leaders to address the issue to make the state less vulnerable to the rising sea.
“There is always more to do, at least in Rhode Island,” Freedman said. “There are a lot of people working on it. It is a challenging issue. It is a daunting task, but we are working on it.”