A Higher Ocean Already Menaces Gulf, East Coasts

We tend to think of climate migration due to sea-level rise as a phenomenon eventually affecting low-lying island states in the Pacific or delta dwellers in Bangladesh. But it will come to the United States too, as a rising ocean threatens homes and workplaces and infrastructure. Indeed, the human impacts of rising ocean levels will be felt in the near future, or are already underway, along the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard.

Some 650,000 American homes could be inundated by 2050, according to an analysis by a research group called Climate Central. As reported in the Washington Post in 2022, “Rising seas could swallow millions of U.S. acres within decades,” the newspaper said in summarizing the data. It gets worse: “Properties with a collective assessed value of $108 billion could be affected by the end of the century, based on current emissions.” Further, the data likely underestimate real-world impacts, Climate Central stated, so the cost in the end will be much higher.

Unfortunately, the damage is already underway. According to the American Meteorological Society’s website, “Both the century-long tide gauge data and the more recent altimetry data reveal a rapid decadal acceleration” of sea-level rise starting in 2010, most prominently along the southern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts. The Washington Post picked up on the story last year and then launched its own investigation of tidal gauge and satellite data and on the threat facing its readership.

“Where Seas Are Rising at Alarming Speed” headlines the resulting article, published April 29 of this year. Alongside is a color map of the southern United States, with dots representing tidal gauges ranging along the Gulf of Mexico and the southern half of the Atlantic coast. The dots go as far inland as Washington, D.C., key parts of which are built on a floodplain adjacent to a tidal estuary.

“One of the most rapid sea level surges on Earth is besieging the American South, forcing a reckoning for coastal communities across eight U.S. states,” the newspaper reports. “At more than a dozen tide gauges . . . sea levels are at least six inches higher than they were in 2010—a change similar to what occurred over the previous five decades.” A dot in Lake Pontchartrain, next to New Orleans, shows the level there has gone up eight inches since Hurricane Katrina.

But it’s not only the southern states. Five days later came a similar article from the Boston Globe. “Sea-level rise in Boston broke a record in 2023. It’s expected to get worse,” the headline declares. According to the newspaper, “Last year, sea levels along the Boston coastline were, on average, higher than at any other point in recorded history: about 14 inches above levels in 1921, when records began.” This localized impact would appear as worrisome as that affecting the coastal U.S. South.

Indeed, “the record-breaking sea level is yet another data point showcasing a decades-long trend that is accelerating at a startling pace,” the Globe reports. “As climate change worsens, the shoreline along much of the city will need new flood protections, such as berms, sea walls, and restored marshlands, as early as 2030, the latest available data provided by Boston plainly show.” Unfortunately, “As sea-level rise accelerates, Boston is ‘deep into overtime’ to build coastal protections by 2030,” says the Globe, quoting city planners.

As that year approaches, “climate resilience experts told the Globe, the rapidly accelerating pace of sea-level rise necessitates rapid action. Bud Ris, a senior adviser for Boston’s Green Ribbon Commission who advised the city’s climate resilience plan, said Boston is . . . moving from conceptual flood protection plans to specific and concrete ones. ‘It’s really important that we get a continuous line of defense along the waterfront and that all these properties are in sync.’” A map of the proposed flood infrastructure needed for Boston in the next few years looks like the vast system of dikes and levees surrounding New Orleans.

IN many communities along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the effects of sea-level rise are already prominent. Damage of course occurs to coastal cities during worsening storm events, from Nor’easters to hurricanes to massive rains. But sea-level rise means just as much economic damage may come in future years from so-called “high tide flooding,” already in progress in many communities. Some low-lying roads are inundated now twice a day. Storm drains are backing up during daily peaks, sending rainwater from minor storms into homes and businesses.

The American Society of Civil Engineers published what it calls “the first study to estimate [high tide flooding] economic impacts for varying levels of intervention.” The numbers build up quickly. “The 2020 annual national-level costs of $1.3 to $1.5 billion will increase to $28 to $37 billion in 2050 and $220 to $260 billion in 2100 for medium to high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, respectively.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sea levels will rise an additional 10 to 14 inches along the Eastern Seaboard in the next 30 years.

Notice & Comment is the editor’s column and represents his views.

A “staggering” number of workers, amounting to more than 70 percent of the global workforce, are likely to be exposed to climate-change-related health hazards, and existing occupational safety and health protections are struggling to keep up with the resulting risks, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization.

The report, “Ensuring Safety and Health at Work in a Changing Climate,” says that climate change is already having a serious impact on the safety and health of workers in all regions of the world. The ILO estimates that more than 2.4 billion workers (out of a global workforce of 3.4 billion) are likely to be exposed to excessive heat at some point during their work. . . .

In addition, the report estimates that 18,970 lives and 2.09 million disability-adjusted life years are lost annually due to the 22.87 million occupational injuries which are attributable to excessive heat. This is not to mention the 26.2 million people worldwide living with chronic kidney disease linked to workplace heat stress (2020 figures).

—International Labour Organization statement

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [in April] rejected a massive pumped hydropower proposal on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, cementing a new agency policy to no longer advance energy projects opposed by tribes whose land would be affected.

The Navajo Nation filed comments last month opposing the proposed Big Canyon Pumped Hydro project. . . . The tribe warned that the storage project could create “adverse impacts” to water and cultural resources, as well as the tribe’s water rights.

—EnergyWire

A Climate of Concern

For my money, the absolute best environmental magazine in the English language is New Scientist—the cheeky weekly British publication that is to Scientific American what the Economist is to Time. Just in its March 23 issue alone there were four separate articles on climate change, each reporting alarming new research at first hand.

The least worrisome is a short article reporting that “many ski resorts [will] lack snow by 2100.” Veronika Mitterwallner at the University of Bayreuth in Germany and colleagues “modelled greenhouse gas emissions scenarios for the rest of this century to predict future changes in snowfall in seven regions across the world.”

The result was that 13 percent of existing ski resorts will face total loss of snow cover by the end of the century. 20 percent will lose half their days of snow-covered slopes suitable for skiing as early as 2071.

More alarming news is a story reporting, “Major oil- and gas-producing regions in the U.S. are leaking much more methane than current estimates suggest.” The research was performed by a team led by Evan Sherwin of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“He and his colleagues combined data from numerous aerial surveys that used infrared sensors to measure methane leaking from wells, pipelines, and other infrastructure,” the magazine reports. “On average across the regions surveyed, they found methane leaking at a rate of 2.95 percent of total natural gas production, a number three times what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates.”

The research, which covered 29 percent of U.S. onshore natural gas production and a smaller fraction of oil infrastructure, estimated $3 billion in annual revenue losses of the valuable fuels and $9 billion in yearly climate damages from their roles as pollutants.

Next, the magazine states, “Fears grow over Antarctic ice loss.” The news is alarming: “The sea ice that encircles Antarctica has reached near-record low levels for the third year in a row, raising concerns that the ice has undergone a permanent ‘regime shift’ driven by climate change.”

Starting in 2017, sea ice surrounding the continent has been falling alarmingly. “Researchers were shocked when the ice failed to recover during the Antarctic winter last year, remaining so far below average that ‘our statistical models didn’t work any more,’” according to Edward Doddridge of the University of Tasmania. However, Catherine Walker of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says any climate change signal in the ice data is still unclear. “Is it a trend, or is it an elongated blip, or a regime shift?” she asks.

Another winter this year without sea ice recovery would convince many “that Antarctic sea ice has changed, potentially irreversibly,” according to Doddrige. Whatever—sea ice hit a record low in February, the peak of the 2024 summer ice season. The winter ice recovery, or lack, is underway now.

Finally, New Scientist reports economic news: “Extreme heat could trigger the worst global financial crisis we have seen.” The lead is ominous: even higher-latitude countries will be impacted by climate change that affects global supply chains.

Dabo Guan at Tsinghua University in Beijing modeled the global financial system under three emissions scenarios. Under the low-emissions scenario, Guan found that there would be 600,000 annual global deaths due to extreme heat by 2060, with economic losses projected as $3.75 trillion per year in 2020 prices. Total annual losses could hit a quarter of global GDP by that date under the high-emissions scenario, reflecting 1.1 million extra deaths to excessive heat.