sea level rise

In September of 2009, just after back to back earthquakes in Samoa and Indonesia, I wrote an article entitled "Climate Change: A whole lot of shaking going on" where scientists have theorized that earthquakes are increasing due to an unlikely cause: Climate Change.

The theory is that while earthquakes on different tectonic plates do not cause others to occur, for instance the Samoan and Indonesian quakes happened within one day of each other, they can be correlated to other quakes and seismic activity, specifically to 'glacial quakes' caused by fast melting and moving multi-ton glaciers on Greenland.

A wave of realistic behavior washes over coastal real estate market:

Condominiums or building lots that had been on the market for $300,000 may be worth less than $200,000. Once million-dollar homes may now be well down into six figures. Ironically, perhaps, real estate agents say lower values could help sales by convincing would-be sellers to drop asking prices to realistic levels based on the current market rather than the peak of the boom.

In a related story, the value of houseboats skyrocketed...

It ain't just a theory, it's happening now:

Water is rising three times faster on the N.C. coast than it did a century ago as warming oceans expand and land ice melts, recent research has found. It's the beginning of what a N.C. science panel expects will be a 1-meter increase by 2100.

Storms, Young said, are "the hammer" of rising seas. As storm surges pound ashore on a higher base of water, their damage multiplies. The Outer Banks, some scientists predict, could disintegrate into a string of high spots - Avon, Buxton, Ocracoke - reachable only by boat.

And almost completely ignored by the media is the continued warming of the 21st Century:

The North Carolina Coastal Resource Commission just finished the first study of sea level rise in the United States. The most significant part of the study was what the report said about what the market has decided about sea level rise.

... even if the public and governments drag their feet on reacting to a changing coast, others aren't waiting to adapt. State Farm, for example, announced this week that it will no longer write or renew insurance policies for structures on barrier islands to reduce its exposure in areas prone to catastrophic events like hurricanes.

An important conversation took place tonight at the NC Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill. Good people coming together to do good work to preserve one of the world’s most cherished resources: North Carolina’s 5000 miles of beach front and estuarine shoreline.

In case you haven't been paying attention, the coast of North Carolina is a big deal. According to Stanley Riggs, the international expert in coastal management in the Geology Department at ECU, roughly $2.25 billion in direct dollars related coastal tourism flow into our state every year. That money - and our beaches themselves - are at risk.

Many of us have some information from the scientific community about the changes caused by global warming. Growing up in North Carolina, one can see the changes of sea level rise over a 10-20 year period quite easily. North Carolina is home to some of the most unique and fragile land formations in the coastal area, the Outerbanks.

About the study:

After being identified as one of the three states most vulnerable to sea-level rise by NOAA, the state of North Carolina has been allocated $5,000,000 in funding to perform a risk assessment and mitigation strategy demonstration on the potential of sea level rise and the impacts directly linked to climate changes.