Virginia's dying marshes and climate change denial

Daniel Nasaw in BBC News Magazine: Dying wetland trees along Virginia's coastline are evidence that rising sea levels threaten nature and humans, scientists say - and show the limits of political action amid climate change scepticism. In the salt marshes along the banks of the York River in the US state of Virginia, pine and cedar trees and bushes of holly and wax myrtle occupy small islands, known as hummocks.

But as the salty estuary waters have risen in recent years, they have drowned the trees on the hummocks' lower edges. If - when - the sea level rises further, it will inundate and drown the remaining trees and shrubs, and eventually sink the entire marsh. That threatens the entire surrounding ecosystem, because fish, oysters and crabs depend on the marsh grass for food.

"These are just the early warning signs of what's coming," says avian ecologist Bryan Watts, stepping carefully among the fallen pines. The sea level in the Chesapeake Bay area and in south-eastern Virginia is predicted to rise by as much as 5.2ft (1.6m) by the end of the century.

Ancient geologic forces are causing the land literally to sink, while the amount of water in the oceans is increasing because of global warming, scientists say. As a result, the low-lying coastal areas - and the towns in it - are at tremendous risk of flooding.

...But in Virginia's state capital Richmond, as in Washington, many politicians remain sceptical about the extent to which humans are responsible for global warming. They fear measures needed to curb climate change would hurt the economy, threaten private property, and harm commercial and industrial interests....

This is a map of the York River Watershed and includes the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers. Karl Musser, created it based on USGS data. Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Tornadoes' death toll mounts; rescue efforts underway

Jessie Halladay and Doyle Rice in USA Today: A series of tornadoes that cut a swath of death and destruction across at least 10 states left stunned residents digging through rubble Saturday, looking for survivors and bodies.

The death toll stood at 31 early Saturday, including 14 Indiana, 13 in Kentucky, three in Ohio and one in Alabama. Tornadoes also were reported in Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Massive thunderstorms threw off scores of tornadoes, crushing entire blocks of homes, ripping down power lines and tossing cars, buses and trucks on roadways made impassable by debris. The scale of the devastation and the breadth of the storms made it impossible to immediately assess the storm system's damage.

At least four people were killed in and around the town of Chelsea in Jefferson County, Ind. First responders found a 4-year-old boy and his great-grandparents lying on the ground 50 feet from where the elderly couple's home was blown off its foundation and thrown more than 100 feet. "All of this happened in less than 30 seconds," said volunteer firefigthter Cory Thomas.

In Marysville, Ind., most of the several dozen homes that make up the town were destroyed. "Marysville is completely gone," Clark County Sheriff's Maj. Chuck Adams said.

Kentucky declared a state of emergency, and Indiana officials said they were discussing that. Authorities in Ohio planned to survey areas Saturday to determine the extent of the damage there....

February 29, 2012. a view of where a church used to stand in Harrisburg, Illinois, on U.S. Route 45 at south corner with Illinois Route 34 and Illinois Route 145, adjacent to the United States Forest Service office. Shot by Pat York, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Virginia residents oppose preparations for climate-related sea-level rise

Why not let the denialist towns in Virginia serve as control groups for the question, what happens when vulnerable coastal areas make no attempt to adapt? Darryl Fears in the Washington Post: Over his long career as a public planner, Lewis L. Lawrence grew accustomed to the bland formalities of planning commission meetings in Virginia’s Middle Peninsula, where forgetting to cover one’s mouth while yawning through a lecture was about as rude as people got.

But lately, the meetings have gotten far more exciting — in a bad way, said Lawrence, acting executive director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission. A well-organized and vocal group of residents has taken a keen interest in municipal preparations for sea-level rise caused by climate change, often shouting their opposition, sometimes while planners and politicians are talking.

The residents’ opposition has focused on a central point: They don’t think climate change is accelerated by human activity, as most climate scientists conclude. When planners proposed to rezone land for use as a dike against rising water, these residents, or “new activists,” as Lawrence calls them, saw a trick to take their property.

“Environmentalists have always had an agenda to put nature above man,” said Donna Holt, leader of the Virginia Campaign for Liberty, a tea party affiliate with 7,000 members. “If they can find an end to their means, they don’t care how it happens. If they can do it under the guise of global warming and climate change, they will do it.”

Outside of greater New Orleans, Hampton Roads is at the biggest risk from sea-level rise of any area its size in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The water has risen so much that Naval Station Norfolk is replacing 14 piers at $60 million each to keep ship-repair facilities high and dry....

From left uppermost, going clockwise: Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Newport News, Virginia, USA. - July 1996 One can see the major roadways throughout Hampton Roads

A new way of thinking as sea levels rise

Darryl Fears in the Washington Post: …Within 50 years, a big part of Virginia Beach’s identity — its beach — could be lost if nothing is done, said [Clay] Bernick, the city’s environment and sustainability administrator. Large pieces of land could also be lost to the ocean in Norfolk within a few generations. In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that, outside of greater New Orleans, Hampton Roads is at the greatest risk from sea-level rise for any area its size.

“It’s a significant threat,” Bernick said. “At this point, I wouldn’t put it in the category of fear, because it’s a long way off.” But he added: “You’ve got multiple factors with flashing lights saying, ‘Okay, guys, what are you going to do?’ ”

To help answer that question in the past, municipalities turned to a manual published by the Army Corps of Engineers since 1954 on how to protect shores by holding back the sea. But earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published the first manual on how not to hold it back, arguing that costly seawalls and dikes eventually fail because sea-level rise is unstoppable. The federal Global Change Research Program estimates that the sea level will rise 14 to 17 inches in the next century around Hampton Roads.

The analysis, “Rolling Easements,” published on the EPA’s Web site, hopes “to get people on the path of not expecting to hold back the sea” as the warming climate is expected to melt ice around the globe, EPA researcher James G. Titus said.

Titus said state and local governments should start crafting laws and ordinances to limit development on vulnerable lands and encourage people living there to move inland. Reflecting the scale of the problem, the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission issued a report this month warning that 1 million residents would now be threatened by a Category 4 hurricane….

Virginia Beach from space. The raw satellite imagery shown in these images was obtained from NASA and/or the US Geological Survey. Post-processing and production by http://www.terraprints.com. Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

How will sea level rise affect local communities?

Dan Wiessner in Scarsdale Patch: Larchmont is practically underwater. Not the upscale Sound Shore community; this Larchmont is a middle-class neighborhood in Norfolk, VA that's surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay and the mouths of several rivers.

Much of the area is under constant threat of inundation, as the surrounding waters have risen by 14.5 inches since 1930—the highest relative increase in sea level of anywhere on the East Coast. A recent New York Times article called Larchmont "the front line" in the battle against rising waters and detailed the tribulations of local residents and the multi-million dollar projects that may or may not produce a solution.

But how far off is this headache for Westchester's Larchmont and other communities along the Sound and the Hudson River? What does it mean for residents? The potential consequences could affect local utilities, regional commuters, waterfront businesses and local property owners.

"It could happen next summer," said Kristin Marcell, a member of the State Department of Environmental Conservation's (DEC) Hudson River Estuary program, referring specifically to a once-in-a-generation storm that, coupled with rising waters, could wreak havoc on waterfront developments, including homes, roads, train tracks and recreation areas.

…New York Harbor has seen a 15-inch increase since 1860 and a 6-inch rise since 1960, according to the DEC, and the story is the same for the Long Island Sound, where consequences could be grave for the low-lying communities that make up the Sound's 600 miles of coastline.

A new report from the DEC's Sea Level Rise Task Force says the increase in the lower Hudson Valley could be as much as five inches in the next decade and 23 inches by 2100; but, in the case of a scenario called rapid ice melt, in which polar ice caps recede at an alarming rate, area waters could rise by as much as five feet by century's end….

New York harbor, downstream from one of the Larchmonts

Rising sea may prompt inland move for Chesapeake Bay

Nicole Dao and Stacy Jones in Delmarva Now via the Capital News Service: Rising sea levels and violent weather caused by climate change could force some people in the Chesapeake Bay area inland in the coming decades, said a migration policy expert. "If you look at any of the maps that show areas of the world that are low-lying coastal areas, the Chesapeake Bay always shows up," said Susan Martin, executive director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University.

Martin co-chaired the Transatlantic Study Team on Climate-Induced Migration, a group convened to study how climate affects migration, which released a report Wednesday that says natural disasters like rising sea levels and drought will inevitably affect people around the globe. The study argues that policymakers should begin planning how to handle the resulting internal and international movements now.

…The bay has already lost 13 islands to rising sea levels, which could reach 17-28 inches above 1990 levels by 2095, according to the National Wildlife Federation. "The bay makes Maryland the fourth most vulnerable state for pollution," said Tommy Landers, a policy advocate at Environment Maryland. The state's exposed shores make it especially susceptible to damage from hurricanes, which the study said have been increasing in strength.

…Different environmental factors cause varying rates of migration. According to the team's findings, drought and rising sea levels lead to gradual migration, while last year's earthquake in Haiti and this summer's flooding in Pakistan caused sudden refugee movements. Martin said she's not advocating that people leave the bay area immediately. Instead, she said officials and residents should start planning ahead….

Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay, from NASA

Jamestown is sinking

The Virginia Gazette: Two environmental action groups released a joint report claiming several Virginia national park sites, Jamestown among them, will be washed over by rising sea levels if climate change continues unabated.

…Wednesday's report, issued by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council, say more than $200 million in spending and 4,000 Virginia jobs are at risk at Jamestown, Chincoteague and Shenandoah national parks. Jamestown and Chincoteague would flood, according to the report, and warming would diminsh fall colors in the Shenandoah.

The report details what it calls the "wide range of impacts from higher temperatures, rising water levels and stronger hurricanes" on Jamestown, Shenandoah National Park and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

“Climate change poses the greatest risk our National Parks have ever faced," said Theo Spencer of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The Jamestown, Shenandoah and Chincoteague face greater threats than ever before as a result of climate change, and on a scale that will substantially undercut people’s interest in visiting those historic and natural sites. By acting now to reduce the pollution that causes climate change we will stimulate our economy and create millions of new jobs while continuing America's long-standing position of technological leadership.”…Among the claims in the report:

• Jamestown, Chincoteague and the Shenandoah NP are linked to a total of 4,030 jobs and $210.1 million in visitor spending. “But these contributions to Virginia’s economy are threatened by how climate disruption puts at risk the natural and cultural resources that draw visitors to these special places,” according to the report.…
• Before Jamestown and much of Chincoteague may be inundated by higher water levels, key historical, archaeological, and natural resources could be destroyed or damaged by storm surges and erosion resulting from stronger hurricanes and coastal storms….

Blues and purples in the sky behind a statue commemorating the site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Photo credit: National Park Service, Colonial National Historic Park

Planning for sea level rise in Virginia

Carol Vaughn in Delmarva Now: Planning for a two-foot rise in sea level in tidewater Virginia over the next century is the prudent thing to do -- akin to buying insurance or putting money into a retirement account, the director of a Norfolk environmental group told Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore members at its 22nd annual meeting Tuesday.

Ironically, because of rising sea levels, buying insurance is something that is becoming harder and harder for homeowners on Virginia's coast to do, said Skip Stiles, executive director of Wetlands Watch.

Stiles previously worked for more than 20 years in senior staff positions in the U.S. House of Representatives and was a member of former Gov. Tim Kaine's Commission on Climate Change. "The flooding is getting gradually worse," Stiles said.

Wetlands Watch recently intervened in a federal court case in support of the U.S. Environmental Protect-ion Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases cause climate change and endanger human health and welfare -- putting the organization at odds with Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is challenging the EPA finding in court.

Stiles said two feet of sea level rise in the next 100 years is a conservative estimate, according to most scientists. Higher seas will have a greater impact on Virginia than elsewhere because the meteor that impacted eastern Virginia 35 million years ago resulted in a flattened geography where "a little bit of sea level rise causes a whole lot of trouble," he said….

Phytoplankton bloom off the coast of Delmarva peninsula. NASA

Group urges Virginia localities to plan for rising sea levels

Dave Forster in HamptonRoads.com (Virginia): As a regional planner, John Carlock knows getting each Hampton Roads community to agree is rarely, if ever, simple. His next task could be even harder: Convince 16 cities and counties to work together to combat rising sea levels. Funding difficulties aside, the issue unavoidably involves talk of climate change, a topic that ignites its share of debate.

"There are those in leadership positions that have their doubts on some of this stuff," said Carlock, deputy executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. "And obviously it impacts certain communities a lot sooner than others."

The regional planning commission has identified rising sea levels as a critical issue to tackle with its member localities in the next year. Tonight, Portsmouth's City Council will be the first in South Hampton Roads to see the group's presentation. Hampton officials saw it last month.

The matter isn't political for Stan D. Clark, a Republican and a member of Isle of Wight County's board of supervisors who serves on the planning district commission. A rise in sea level is a factual event that localities here are obligated to prepare for, he said. "I think there is climate change. Whether it's naturally occurring or man-made, who knows," he said. "But it's a fact that we have to deal with, and I applaud those efforts."

Some area residents have reported that sea levels have risen locally by about 3.5 inches in the past 20 years, Carlock said. According to the 2008 Governor's Commission on Climate Change, levels will rise 2.3 feet to 5.2 feet by 2100. The regional presentation includes the warning that Hampton Roads is second only to New Orleans in terms of population and infrastructure at risk to sea-level rise and storm-surge flooding. ….

Kurz & Allison lithographic of the 1862 battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac at Hampton Roads. That beach is surely much more developed by now

A Virginia town faces 'dire straits' because of global warming predictions, says expert

David Macauley in the Daily News (Newport News, Virginia): Sobering evidence of how storms will have an increasingly devastating effect on the Peninsula as the century progresses is outlined in a new model by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "This is an important issue for us to get moving on," Eric Walberg, physical and environmental planning administrator with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, told the Hampton City Council last week.

The hydrodynamic model produced by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science predicts the impacts of future storms. The effects of Hurricane Isabel, a Category 1 storm, in 2003 are replicated given predicted sea level rises over the century. Much of eastern Hampton and Poquoson was flooded during Isabel. By 2085 much of the central Peninsula would be under water during an Isabel-type storm, according to the model. Toward the end of the century, a Category 1 storm would have the same effect as a Category 2 storm does with today's sea level, he said.

"There's a couple of important take-home messages," Walberg said. "Over time moderate storm events like Isabel or the recent nor'easter will create flooding that's more severe. The other thing," he said, "and this is the truly troubling point in my mind, is over time were going to become more vulnerable to catastrophic flooding from a larger storm. We are going to reach the point where a strong Category 1 or Category 2 storm could really create a difficult issue."

Walberg also referred to the Virginia Governor's Commission on Climate Change that has spent two years examining the impact of issues such as global warming. "We can expect to see approximately 3 degrees Celsius increase in atmospheric temperature by the end of the century, approximately an 11 percent increase in precipitation and a sea level rise between two and three feet by the end of the century," he said.
"The sea level rise is most troubling for Hampton Roads and we are likely to see significant" impact on natural systems as well as buildings and infrastructure, Walberg said…..

Hampton Roads seen from space

Is climate change cooking Delmarva hunters' goose? Biologist thinks so

Freddy Valencia in DelmarvaNow.com: On Thursday night in front of a small audience at Gander Mountain, Ed Perry, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, gave a presentation on the impact of climate change on fish and waterfowl. For hunters and fishermen who are starting to wonder where all the ducks and fish have gone, Perry has an answer.

"The level of emissions that we are using today is skyrocketing, and it's something that affects every natural system," he said. "Every state has gone up at least one hardiness zone, and some have gone up two. For example, southern Pennsylvania's hardiness zone now is what North Carolina's was 15 years ago."

Basically, plants that were once growing in the South are now able to make their way further north, and because many lakes in the West aren't freezing over anymore, the migratory patterns for ducks and geese have changed drastically. At the level that we are now, there appears to be no quick fix either….