sea level rise

The long retreat from the coasts

May 28, 2022 / oceans /

In a sense, human history since the end of the ice age has been the story of one long retreat from the ocean. I sometimes wonder if this is not why stories of floods are not so common in many cultures globally. Of course, flooding is a common human experience. But vast amounts of territory have been lost globally, from Beringia in the north Pacific, to the lost region of Doggerland between the United Kingdom and Denmark. This is why fishermen can pull harpoons out of the ocean near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea.

With global warming, this process is continuing. Some of my favorite places will be lost to the waters, such as south Florida. Entire cities are being moved to make way for this process. In some areas, such as China, the challenges are immense. But how can this transition be managed. Canada’s Hakai Institute has one of my favorite online journals, which focuses on marine issues. I strongly recommend one recent piece, ”Letting the Sea Have its Way,” which details the story of how Britain is abandoning some oceanside land. By allowing this terrain to return to the marsh that it once was, the nation gains environmental benefits, while also increasing local resiliency against flooding. This text itself is a selection from a forthcoming book by Erica Gies, ”Water Always Wins.” Based on this selection, this book will certainly be on my reading list.

Shawn Smallman, 2022

New Maps of Rising Seas

March 23, 2020 / climate change, oceans / , , ,

From the public domain source, the US EPA (2014): “This figure shows average absolute sea level change, which refers to the height of the ocean surface, regardless of whether nearby land is rising or falling. Satellite data are based solely on measured sea level, while the long-term tide gauge data include a small correction factor because the size and shape of the oceans are changing slowly over time.
[…]The shaded band shows the likely range of values, based on the number of measurements collected and the precision of the methods used.
. By US EPA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Of all the changes that are impacting the globe with climate change, few will be as overwhelming as sea level rise. Some cities, such as New York, are trying to address the problem head on. As Orrin Pilkey has described, North Carolina is taking a different approach; in that state business lobbyists have fought hard to create doubt about global warming. But regardless of what people say, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise, the average global temperature increases year after year, and the mean sea level will be increasing over the coming decades.

Denise Lu and Christopher Flavelle’s have a wonderful (October 29, 2019) article in the New York Times titled Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050. The piece describes how new research shows that the sea level rises by 2050 will have a much greater impact than previously estimated. What is most powerful about their work are the maps. As the authors’ describe, most of Southern Vietnam will vanish by 2050. It is one thing to read those words. It’s another to see the map, and to imagine what that will truly mean. Similarly, most of Bangkok, Thailand will go beneath the waves. While much of Shanghai will survive, many nearby cities will disappear. …

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Exodus: Climate Migration

November 26, 2018 / climate change, oceans / ,

“Global temperature anomalies for 2015 compared to the 1951–1980 baseline. 2015 was the warmest year in the NASA/NOAA temperature record, which starts in 1880. It has since been superseded by 2016 (NASA/NOAA; 20 January 2016).” By NASA Scientific Visualization Studio – https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov / Goddard Space Flight Center – https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Weather Channel has an online reporting series called Exodus: the Climate Migration Crisis, which examines how climate change is impacting diverse communities globally. This is an ongoing series, which will be updated throughout the year. Each article combines well-written text with beautiful photography, for topics as diverse as water shortages in Jordan, to the situation in Scituate, Massachusetts.

I now live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but still work at PSU, since I teach entirely online and do the advising for the online track. While Scituate is only a half-hour’s drive from Boston, this city itself will face it’s own challenges with sea level rise, as Orren Pilkey has discussed in his wonderful book Retreat from a Rising Sea. So Scituate’s story seems very close to home. …

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Global Warning: a CNN documentary

June 25, 2018 / Uncategorized / , , ,

CNN’s documentary “Global Warning: Arctic Melt” examines the issue of climate change by focusing on the Greenland ice sheet. Reporter Clarissa Ward first visits Greenland, where she interviews climate scientists against stunning backgrounds of fjords, glaciers and ice sheets. She then travels to south Florida, where she interviews Miami’s former mayor about the impact that sea level rise is already having upon his community. The video is brief at 26 minutes. Nonetheless, it is both visually engaging and thoughtfully written. It would be a good documentary for an “Introduction to International and Global Studies” class. Recommended.

Shawn Smallman, 2018

Book Review: Retreat from a Rising Sea

May 21, 2018 / climate change, environment, oceans / , , , ,

Citation: From the public domain source, the US EPA (2014): “This figure shows average absolute sea level change, which refers to the height of the ocean surface, regardless of whether nearby land is rising or falling. Satellite data are based solely on measured sea level, while the long-term tide gauge data include a small correction factor because the size and shape of the oceans are changing slowly over time. […]The shaded band shows the likely range of values, based on the number of measurements collected and the precision of the methods used.
By US EPA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Pilkey, Orrin H., et al. Retreat from a Rising Sea : Hard Decisions in an Age of Climate Change. Columbia University Press, 2016.

As I’ve worked on the previous editions of our textbook with Kim Brown, I’ve become increasingly convinced that it’s important for educators to recognize that our task is not only to teach about how humanity can prevent global warming, but also how humanity will need to adapt to climate change. There is now so much additional CO2 in the atmosphere that we are committed to global warming for generations to come. Perhaps no environmental impact will affect people as much rising sea levels, which is the central theme of Retreat from a Rising Sea. …

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Sea level rise in Asia

March 12, 2018 / Asia, climate change, water / , , , ,

Casinos in Macau, China.
中国澳门的赌场 Photo by Shawn Smallman

I think that we have reached the point with global warming where we can no longer pretend that we’re going to meet our goals. That doesn’t mean that citizens globally can stop the effort to limit climate change. There is a vast difference between the worst scenarios and the best. There are also reasons for hope, from the plunging cost of solar power, to the rapid development of offshore wind power. At the same time, in the end it’s not enough. Given the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the changing albedo of the Arctic due to declining ice cover, and the warming of our oceans, global warming will be continuing for centuries. At this point, human societies will be adapting to climate change far into the future, especially coastal communities. …

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Sea level, hurricanes and Tampa

July 28, 2017 / climate change / ,

“Hurricane Isabel from ISS,” Image courtesy of Mike Trenchard, Earth Sciences & Image Analysis Laboratory , Johnson Space Center. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
My parents lived in Florida for six months a year over nearly twenty-five years, and other family members have lived there for longer, so it’s a state that I love. I think that the West Coast is a particularly beautiful place, where you can kayak through a river with alligators in the morning, before finishing the day on the beach looking for the green flash.  As I’ve talked about before, though, I don’t think Florida as a state has sufficiently acted upon the reality of sea level rise. Florida is not unique, as cities like Jakarta and Shanghai wrestle with the same issue. Still, Florida has to deal with a double threat, because it has to worry not only about the rising waters but also the implications this has for hurricanes. The 1935 Hurricane devastated Key West. While people are aware of how vulnerable South Florida is to a hurricane, though, perhaps the greatest threat is in the Tampa Bay area. Darryl Fears has a new article titled, “Tampa Bay’s Coming Storm,” in the Washington Post. As Fears points out, the sea level may rise “between six inches and more than two feet by the middle of the century, and up to seven feet when it ends. On top of that, natural settling is causing the land to slowly sink.” …

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We must face the new truth of global warming

November 19, 2016 / Europe, Middle East, migration / , , , , ,

Earlier on this blog I’ve talked about the evidence that the Syrian civil war needs to be understood in the context of a devastating drought, and the government’s inability to respond effectively. What is chilling, however, is what global warming entails for the entire Middle East and northern Africa. The recent Washington Post article by Hugh Naylor, “An epic Middle East heat wave could be global warming’s hellish curtain-raiser,” is a thought-provoking look at what this future might entail. In some respects, the future is already here in that nations in the region are experiencing record high temperatures, and a heat index that has reach 140 degrees in the UAE and Iran. Unfortunately, I no longer think that we can talk about preventing the worst aspects of global warming. It’s too late. The reality is that not only is global warming taking place, but also that the global community has waited too long to respond. The world is committed to a long course of climate change and sea level rise that will endure for centuries. Some of the arguments in Naylor’s piece are chilling: “A study published by the journal Nature Climate Change in October predicted that heat waves in parts of the Persian Gulf could threaten human survival toward the end of the century.” Of course, this will entail the massive migration of people from this region to Europe and Asia. Still, it would be a mistake to focus only on this region in isolation. Climate migration will be a key social, political and economic factor in global affairs not only for the lifetime of everyone who reads this piece, but also for their grandchildren. The impact will be particularly devastating in some areas, such as the cities of the Chinese coast, many of which (like Shanghai) will be largely flooded. In the United States, Zillo is trying to calculate impact the economic impact of rising seas to Florida. …

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