Regular coastal towns and cities and sea level rising
Seeing this piece by Andrew Revkin Can cities adjust to a retreating coastline? reminded me to also look closer to home. We all too readily forget that NYC is not a typical problem of a coastal communitiy…so what do planners in smaller towns face? How do they choose responses, for instance, if an engineering report proposes possible loss of 20% of your tax base by 2050 due to rise in sea level predictions and the particular configuration of your coastal areas? The towns of Scituate, Duxbury, and Marshfield in MA face real decision making in terms of planning. As Selectman Rick Murray of Scituate told a friend of mine, “They who keep their heads in the ground will drown.”
As an exercise in arguing sea level rise and consequences in or near your own neighborhood, walking the information and language through this lens might help to clarify some of the problems involved that are not at such a large scale point of view and beyond most of our imaginations and expertise, and could be in your own neighborhood or vacation home. (Or is your land sinking?) (Disclosure: I do not own any coastal property. Nertz.)
Dan, there are 3 main reasons for a retreating coast lines, erosion, sea level rise due to global warming and subsidence. You picked an insignificant cause, sea level rise for high light in your title.
Sea Level rise is estimated at: ” It is estimated that the rate of change in MSL for Boston Harbor is 2.63 millimeters/year (approx. 1”/10 years). Historic tide data was collected for the Boston Harbor for the period between January 1, 1921 and May 6, 2011.” From your reference “South Shore Coastal Hazards Adaptation Study” That means total change in 100 years is estimated ~10 inches.
Your referenced report uses adaptation as a primary response, and is tailored to adapting to the components of erosion. That is a meaningful approach for any coastal region.
No one can stop sea level from rising, nor from eastern coasts from subsiding.
Dan,
It’s not about science. It’s about SCARING THE PEOPLE. Fear is the most powerful of the emotions. If you scare them enough, you can do anything. Fear is the most powerful of the emotions
Corev….
“Going forward, the challenge for this
work will be to educate the public about the projected impacts of sea level rise and to take action to avoid costly impacts to private and public property.” From the report’s emphasis.
The title reflects the reports emphasis. Subsidence and erosion mechanisms are magnified by seas level rise. The last century saw a foot rise in Boston, but the authors thought a two foot rise this century possible and were projecting possible scenarios of tides, storms, etc in relation to this sea level rise.
Sammy….
Fear is used to promote many causes. The point of the post is to explore concretely an example of what three towns have to deal with or ignore, with very boring looking maps and such.
“The Scituate, Marshfield and Duxbury Coastal Hazards Adaptation Study assessed general changes
in coastal hazard impacts that could occur due to climate change, primarily the impacts from sea
level rise and changes in storm intensity and frequency.”
Dan, this is the actual Sea Level rise from Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
The alarmist projections want us to think it is more like the period 7-8K years ago, or even 406K years ago. Its not! Remember the average rise of 2-3MM/Yr has been consistent for centuries. To think otherwise is fearing something that is not happening.
This is an actual look at the long term trend in temps: http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png