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Apparently the local lawmakers barred new climate change data from being incorporated into their master plans in favor of tourism….looks like they about to pay the piper…..
“In 2012, North Carolina legislators passed a bill that barred policymakers and developers from using up-to-date climate science to plan for rising sea levels on the state’s coast. Now Hurricane Florence threatens to cause a devastating storm surge that could put thousands of lives in danger and cost the state billions of dollars worth of damage…. But in North Carolina, lawmakers chose to ignore the threats. A panel of scientists on the state Coastal Resources Commission issued a dire warning in March 2010, estimating that the sea levels along the state’s coast would rise 39 inches over the next century. Conservative lawmakers and business interest groups feared the report would hurt lucrative real estate development on the state’s coast and sought to undermine it. A lobbying group committed to economic development on the coast accused the panel of “pulling data out of their hip pocket.”
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Come on , really? “would rise 39 inches over the next century” Kind of a brash statement. So I’m doing the math. That’s .39 inches a year, and the commission issued this in 2010, eight years ago. So-ooo that means currently the water level should now be 3.12 inches higher on average. It’s not.
This storm is an event just like last Saturday’s Northeast blow on Ontario. The water level was higher at the beach then and returned back to normal level now.
This planet has the same amount of water as it had thousands of years ago albeit gas, liquid or solid, it just keeps getting moved around.
I’m supposed to know, thus the name
H2O Rick
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Well, having been a visitor to the OBX since ’94, I’ve been impressed with a number of observations about the place.
First, as delightful a water playground as it is for us, it doesn’t take a lot of observation to realize that it’s not terra firma, and most of the OBX is very close to sea level. It’s not the coastline, it’s a sand bar 20 miles out in the sea. We can be there because of our ingenuity, but on Nature’s scale it wouldn’t take to obliterate the OBX. We go there at Nature’s pleasure, and must leave when she says it’s time to go.
Second, since I’ve been going there, there are areas of Hatteras Island (in particular) that are proving to be increasingly difficult to maintain above sea level. Several complete washouts, most notably a new cut near the town of Hatteras that was something like 40-60 feet deep (I forgot which hurricane that was). Amazingly, to me, they filled that back in with sand (not a bridge). There have been other new cuts, but the lesson from that episode was that just about any part of Hatteras Island could be completely and totally washed away in a storm. All you have to do is take good look at Mirlo Beach the next time down.
Third, while I concede that all the water we have on Earth is all the water we’ve ever had, the issue isn’t the magnitude of water but the phase that it is in. The problem with projections into 2010 (or even 2040) is that there is a highly non-linear relationship between temperature and water as liquid. From -50º to 31.9º F it’s solid, but at 32.1º it’s liquid. So whether or not it’s 39″ of sea level rise or just 20″ or just 10″, it won’t go up linearly. It’s very hard to accurately predict a non-linear relationship, because there is a lot of uncertainty about the inflection point. So while I’m not qualified to critique scientific estimates of sea level rise, I am aware that it won’t be a linear rate of change (i.e., 0.312″ / year).
In sum, whether the OBX escapes Florence or not, I’m quite confident that sometime in the coming decades, possibly a little longer, we boarders won’t be going down the OBX anymore. Maybe I’ll live to witness that, maybe I won’t, but it’s pretty certain to happen. I’m sure there will be coastal places to go, though I’m not sure the real estate developers (and insurers) will be able to cope with the rate that the coastline is changing. And as one who has family with a house in Hilton Head about 5′ above sea level, 100 yards or so from the water’s edge, I’m hoping they escape this one unscathed. But sooner or later, I’m pretty confident their luck is going to run out (and I’m pretty sure they’ve come to terms with that).
FYI: In New York State, data from environmental researchers at Cornell show that average wintertime temperatures are 4º F warmer than they were in the 1970s. But climate change isn’t happening here…
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How do I know if the carpenters level I use is “linear” or “non-linear”
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