AC Flooding

The Press of Atlantic City has posted photos of flooding from the recent storm out in the Atlantic. Molly Bilinski has posted a video showing this morning's flooding, bathed in the sunshine of a beautiful day.

Flooding during a hurricane is one thing - everyone stays in, or evacuates. Businesses are already closed, so maybe access isn't a big issue. But sunny day flooding is become an increasingly common problem that hurts businesses and strands schoolkids. Today's closures are somewhere in between, but a reminder of a trend.

States 10,000 years from now

The NYTimes made a graphic of each state as it would appear 10,000 years from now, with substantial sea-level rise.

Presenting it as a quiz makes it fun. But it is really quite serious, especially when you think about the loss of cultural landmarks that could have lasted that long.

Sea level rise and property values

While the news story is several months old, I was struck when I read this story from Key Largo. It details how the streets of Key Largo are flooding with increasing frequency. The article includes a picture of a flooded street on what appears to be an otherwise nice day - just a high tide with a super moon will do it. But the interesting twist was this quote:

"So far we have not been seeing buyers being concerned with sea level rise, which I'm a little surprised given all the media attention it has garnered lately," said Lisa Ferringo, president of the Marathon/Lower Keys Board of Realtors.

When will shore towns see that change? How much flooding is a meaningful inconvenience? Is this a bubble about to burst or a new standard of social resilience. Seems like there should be some sociologists building predictive models on this.

New Sea Level Rise projections

Real Climate comments on a recent expert panel that has described the best understanding of what sea level rise is expected to bring to our shores. The fascinating thing that it includes are 2 different measures of what to expect depending on the human response to climate change:

With successful, strong mitigation measures, the experts expect a likely rise of 40-60 cm in this century and 60-100 cm by the year 2300. With unmitigated warming, however, the likely range is 70-120 cm by 2100 and two to three meters by the year 2300.

The difference between the strong mitigation and unmitigated is nearly double. It really speaks to both the inevitability of impacts and the value of intervention. The commenters are more interesting than on many blogs. Check out comment #40 which speaks to design responses. BTW, The original paper on the panel is written by Rutgers' Ben Horton. 

The end of Miami?

Jeff Goodell writes in Rolling Stone that Miami is a doomed city.  He writes about an imagined Hurricane that hits the city in 2030 and an ultimate demise of the city that leaves it as an unusual tourist destination. "And still, the waters kept rising, nearly a foot each decade. By the latter end of the 21st century, Miami became something else entirely: a popular snorkeling spot where people could swim with sharks and sea turtles and explore the wreckage of a great American city." after the future scenarios,  he analyzes the overall situation making it clear how many different factors contribute to the problem in Miami: rising sea level, more intense storms, high water table, nuclear reactors on the coast (with more proposed), and startlingly flat terrain (half of the land, he reports, surrounding Miami is less than 5 feet above sea level). With only modest inundation, Miami starts getting cut off from the rest of Florida. And, writes Goodell, those reactors get isolated from the mainland with only three feet of sea level rise:

"I went out there anyway. I was denied access to the inner workings, but I got a very nice view of two aging 40-year-old reactors perched on the edge of a rising sea with millions of people living within a few miles of the plant. It was as clear a picture of the insanity of modern life as I've ever seen."

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Coupled with the Bill McKibben piece in Rolling Stone last year that distills the latest depressing science on climate change, things seem stark for South Beach. Here are his three numbers that should scare you:

• 2° Celsius 
• 565 Gigatons 
• 2,795 Gigatons 

This isn't exactly news. The NY Times  mapped out scenarios for a variety of cities last year and Miami instantly stood out. But together these two Rolling Stone pieces get a strong Places and Spaces recommendation. And we recommend readers visit the beaches around Miami and the Everglades now, while they can.

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Sea level rise in Boston

The Atlantic explores the consequences of sea-level rise with some maps of the most impacted areas of Boston. A new report from the Boston Harbor Association provides details on properties that would be most severely impacted, but it appears to be much of the city as we know it now.

Sea level rise as peacemaker

An easy way to resolve international territorial disputes.

Sea Level Rise Redux

For the folks at Temple-Ambler I offer this incomplete reading list on SLR and Coastal Development.

• Living by the Rules of the Sea. David Bush, Orrin Pilkey, and William Neal. Duke University Press, 1996
• The Rising Sea by Orrin Pilkey and Rob Young, 2009
• "How High Will Seas Rise? Get Ready for Seven Feet" in E360 (e360.yale.edu) (14 Jan 2010) Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, 2010
• J.G. Titus and J. Wang. 2008. EPA 430R07004. USEPA Washington DC. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/background.html
• Grinsted, Moore and Jevrejeva, 2009, Reconstructing sea level from paleo and projected temperatures 200 to 2100 AD. Climate Dynamics.
• Reconstructing sea level from paleo and projected temperatures 200 to 2100 AD Grinsted, Moore and Jevrejeva, Climate Dynamics, 2009
• Scarfo, R. A. 1986. "Stewardship in the 20th century," Landscape Architectural Review, 7: 2, 13-15.
• Scarfo, R. A. 1988. "Stewardship and the Profession of Landscape Architecture," Landscape Journal, 7 (1988): 1, 60-68.

More Stop the Beach Renourishment

Pruned has a link and fun photo for that pending SCOTUS case, Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  I am starting to think it is going to be a high profile decision, and it is going to be treated as one of the leading indicators for a post-sea-level-rise legal environment.

LiveBlog: Jim Titus on "Can we prepare for a rising sea?"

Jim Titus, Climate Change Division, U.S. EPA
"Can we prepare for a rising sea?"
2010 Spring Environmental Geomatics Lecture


Words fail to capture much of this one - but the comments were offered to get us thining and not tp represent any official preferences for policy or funding decisions

No matter what you think about the science, let’s just imagine what we would do if it happens.

If you are a risk manager type, you probably have to think about that uncertainty.

There are generally 3 approaches - retreat, armor, elevate (you could accommodate, but how far does that really get you?)
3 factors for wetlands ecosystems: Topography, wetland accretion, shore protection structures

A rise faster than 2mm/yr presents the possibility of losing wetlands that can’t migrate inland fast enough.  SLR is now a threat to septic tanks and development linked with them, but that has also pushed development into tighter bands of development along the shore.


Is it a taking if the government says that you can't build because it is going to be underwater in 30 years? Yes.  But is it a taking if you can't build a bulkhead?

Long Beach Township - a govt nourished dune blocked someone's view and they got $200k

This summer there will be a new SCOTUS decision: Stop the Beach Nourishment Inc. vs. Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Texas has now recognized the rolling easement, but the state courts may still change things - Texas is unusual

Where you are matters: Maryland is changing from bulkheads -> revetments -> living shoreline

Take home:  Maybe we don't need to kick people out and we don't need to get tough, but maybe we do need to establish the rules of the game for a generation or 2 from now to frame the responses that they will have to take

Coastal/Climate Explorations at Rutgers

By Request:

• Advanced Geomatics website
• Vulnerability of New Jersey's Coastal Habitats to Sea Level Rise
• Junior Studio

The Jersey Shore is going down!

The Cape May Herald reports on two studies that say that sea level rise will be worse in that area than elsewhere. Not only is the sea level rising there, but the land is slowly sinking into the Atlantic. The Philadelphia Enquirer spoke with the researchers at Penn responsible for the papers as well as other experts:

"There are two take-homes here," added Kenneth Miller, a Rutgers University researcher who reviewed the studies. "There's been an acceleration of sea-level rise from pre-Industrial Revolution rates.. . . And we're throwing on one to two millimeters a year in New Jersey due to sinking."

Just to be safe, LBI schools will implement a new policy to try to reduce the weight pressing down on their sinking barrier island.

Public student presentation

Public Presentation by Students of Intermediate Landscape Architecture I

11:550:331

DESIGN EXPLORATIONS IN A SEA LEVEL RISE LANDSCAPE

Monday December 21st
12 Noon

At Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Cape May County
355 Court House/So Dennis RoadCape May Court House, NJ

RSVP: dtulloch@crssa.rutgers.edu

Climate victims

Britain's Times Online reports on recent international news in sea level rise. They mention Tuvalu, which is getting more attention these days, as well as the 2005 abandonment of Papau New Guinea's Carteret Atoll. If that gets you down, maybe the Climategate news may refocus you.

Giant dune

The Cape May Herald had this great photo of the storm damage at North Wildwood in their set of photos from T.S. Ida. I posted it because it reminded me of a few of today's proposals for engineered interventions in our design jury. Check out their other photos.

Devastating

Was this storm the worst since 1992? Check out the cover of today's Star-Ledger! The reader photos from the Press of Atlantic City are pretty convincing too.

Meanwhile, public response to both the environment and climate change is cooling, if these polls can be trusted.

Sea Isle City is flooding too

Thank goodness for YouTube, huh?

State of Emergency in Cape May County!

Seriously, Cape May County declared a state of emergency yesterday due to coastal flooding and storms. Sea level rise isn't just going to suddenly happen. Each storm will just get slightly more costly than the last. Today lots of schools are closed and evacuation maps are posted online. They even closed the zoo. Avalon canceled their Borough council meeting.

This can't be good.

Why don't they do something? The Philadelphia Inquirer had one answer:

Although Wildwood's flooding was its deepest in years, Sgt. Jim Nanos was taking it in stride.

"It's a way of life when you live down here," he said. "When you get high winds and high water, you adjust your life accordingly."

Sure, it is just a storm. Just another one. Another expensive one:



Today the Cape May-Lewes ferry is closed. The Coast Guard had to suspend their search for the lost boat. But we'll still have class.

(The Star-Ledger Photo from Lavalette is a real keeper)

When will NOLA go under again?

This past summer the Christian Science Monitor had an Environment feature on sea level rise in New Orleans and other areas along the lower Mississippi. Louisiana has long struggled in its ongiong battle with the Gulf of Mexico, but this could get really ugly. The researchers they interview project that by 2100 Louisiana could lose more than 5,000 square miles (note: 1 sq mi = 640 acres). Of course, since it is already below sea level, their projections don't look good for New Orleans either.

Advanced Environmental Geomatics

I know it took a while, but the students from 11:372:462 Advanced Environmental Geomatics have posted the results of their work this past Spring semester. Their spatial analyses of sea level rise in Cape May County produced some eye-popping results. Make sure you check out both their photos and reports giving both some breadth and depth in their assay of conditions.

Keep your eyes on this space: The Landscape Architecture students in 11:550:331 should have something new by December.