Striped Bass Shift Linked to Climate Change? Don't Ask Virginian-Pilot

When reporters ignore climate change in their stories, they end up sounding like they're blaming the supernatural for events easily connected to climate change. Take this Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot story on a sharp decline in catch of striped bass:

They say there are a handful of elements that have lowered the ocean take the past two years.

Weather has been the biggest reason. Warmer starts to the past two winters have caused many rockfish to stay in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, or up the coast around upper Maryland and New Jersey. [...]

"It's been the strangest year," said Rob O'Reilly, chief of fisheries management for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. "The weather has been so screwy that some fish haven't moved south like they usually do, and the ones that have positioned themselves offshore."

Reporters are often reluctant to connect the dots to climate change because they're not climate science experts and they're worried that doing so will draw the ire of anti-science Tea Party activists.

But when reporters ignore reality, they leave their audience in the dark. Strange! Screwy! Don't ask me for answers, you're on your own!

And then newspapers wonder why half of their audience has stopped paying $15 a month for a subscription. If you have to go find the truth yourself anyway, might as well do it for free on the internet.

Virginia to Communities on Climate-Fueled Sea Level Rise: You're on Your Own

Whether you're anti-science crusader Ken Cuccinelli, solution-rejecting Bob McDonnell, or any of Virginia's "centrist" Democrats who know global warming means we're screwed but remain too cowardly to advocate aggressive action, aside from a couple of dozen lonely progressive voices, Richmond is united in telling climate change that it should not be impacting Virginia. Lo and behold, climate change has stubbornly refused to stop accelerating, and now communities like Norfolk are struggling to deal with climate impacts with no help from the state:

City and county leaders, already burdened with typical tasks of local governance – zoning, construction permits, liquor licenses, school board appointments – are also weighing multi-million-dollar flood control projects to keep the ocean at a livable distance.

While they struggle to pull together know-how and funding, those with the broader view and resources – state agencies – are absent from the discussions: In a study released earlier this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council ranked Virginia as one of 29 states that were "largely unprepared and lagging behind" on planning for climate change at the state level.

In many ways the problem is already upon Norfolk. The Atlantic Ocean off Virginia's coast is rising a quarter of an inch annually, equivalent to two feet in 100 years – faster than anywhere else in the United States except for coastal Louisiana. The ocean at Sewells Point, site of the Norfolk Naval Station, rose 14.5 inches between 1930 and 2010. And that's likely to accelerate. Last month the U.S. Geological Survey reported that sea levels are rising more quickly along the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Massachusetts than globally, possibly as a result of slowing Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns.

The inaction of Virginia's elected officials is actually hurting the state twice - not just paying the price of climate inaction through extreme weather and sea level rise, but hurting Virginia's economy by losing out on clean energy jobs.

But hey, who has time to pay attention to looming disaster when there's women's bodies that need regulating, amirite?

New Study Details Threat of Global Warming-Fueled Sea Level Rise in Virginia

Sea levels have already risen 8 inches since 1880 and thanks to global warming are forecast to rise at least several more feet in the lifetime of a child born today. A new study from Climate Central takes a look at what that means for people who live on America's coasts:

The studies look at people who live in homes within three feet of high tide, whereas old studies looked just at elevation above sea level, according to work published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research and an accompanying report by Climate Central.

That's an important distinction because using high tide is more accurate for flooding impacts, said study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment. And when the new way of looking at risk is factored in, the outlook looks worse, Overpeck said.

"It's shocking to see how large the impacts could be, particularly in southern Florida and Louisiana, but much of the coastal U.S. will share in the serious pain," Overpeck said.

And what about here in Virginia? I entered a very modest number - three feet of sea level rise, storm surge & tide - into the ClimateCentral.org model & here's what I got:

Things below +3ft in Virginia:

• Population 58,507 0.7%
• Homes 28,511 0.8%
• Acres 157,123 0.6%

Over 1 in 6 chance sea level rise + storm surge + tide will overtop +3ft by 2020 at nearest flood risk indicator site: Lewisetta - Potomac River, 116 miles away.

View the model for yourself and see what different levels of sea level rise would mean for your community:

 

New Report Highlights Climate Crisis' Threat to Hampton Roads

A new report takes a closer look at which cities will be hurt by global warming-fueled sea level rise. As Brad Plumer reports, Virginia is in the climate crisis crosshairs:

Things don’t look good for India. But the United States doesn’t get off easy, either. If you look at exposed assets rather than total population, then Miami, New York-Newark, New Orleans and Virginia Beach all climb higher on the list, with $7 trillion in assets vulnerable to severe coastal flooding by 2070. [...]

Take Miami. A three-foot sea-level rise, experts have noted, would likely put all of Miami Beach underwater and turn downtown Miami into an island, channeled off from the rest of Florida. Yet the state isn’t doing all that much to prepare for this eventuality. Instead, it’s racing to subsidize new developments along the coasts, through state-run insurance and funding for coastal protection. By contrast, cities such as London and Amsterdam are taking more prudent steps to guard against future flooding — and, as the OECD report notes, are likely to cope with sea-level rise better.

That’s not an isolated case. In general, the United States has been slow in preparing for rising sea levels. In many cases, we’re actively making things worse, as Steve Nash laid out in this excellent article in the New Republic. This is one area in particular where climate-change denial can do a lot of damage — it’s awfully hard to prepare for a problem that no one can agree even exists.

So we're not doing climate mitigation, like cutting carbon pollution. And as an event just last month at NASA's Langley Center in Hampton pointed out, we're not doing climate adaptation, either, like coastal restoration & limiting development in areas just above sea level.

Basically, if you were consciously trying to leave the worst possible situation for the next generation, you'd be doing exactly what people like Gov. Bob McDonnell are doing now - deny the problem & delay solutions. And note the 2070 date - we're no longer talking about forecast impacts on some future generation, but real changes happening within the lifetimes of the children in your family right now.

Amazing that the same people who profess such a concern with our budgetary national debt have no qualms about leaving our kids stuck with a multi-trillion-dollar climate liability.

McDonnell to Hampton Roads: Drop Dead

The Republican Party of Virginia's candidate for governor is writing off Hampton Roads. Not in the next election -- permanently.

First, a quick review of the science. Few areas of the entire country are more vulnerable to sea level rise than Hampton Roads. The map at right shows what would happen under a 12-foot sea level rise scenario, leaving much of the metro area under water.

Here's the scary part: Thanks to increasing global fossil fuel use and accelerating global warming, scientists are now saying that's possible much sooner than previously thought. The latest research shows we could be looking at six feet of sea level rise -- not in some far-off scenario, but in the lifetime of a child born today.

Now consider that Hampton Roads is already vulnerable to strong storms. Scientists say rising sea levels could double the land vulnerable to a category 1 hurricane.

So what do scientists say we need to do? Simple -- start moving away from dirty, polluting fossil fuels and onto clean, renewable energy sources like solar and wind power. Luckily for our economy, clean energy sources are more jobs-intensive than mining and drilling for fossil fuels. And fortunately for consumers, clean energy is getting cheaper by the day -- and if we develop the technology to use it more efficiently, we can save families money.

But Bob McDonnell just doesn't care. Instead of standing up for Hampton Roads and standing with science, Bob McDonnell is trying to impress his buddies in Washington -- including one of the least-popular disgraced politicians in the entire country, Newt Gingrich.

Newt's Big Oil-funded front group called for Bob to denounce the science-backed American Clean Energy and Security Act that could come before the full House for a vote as soon as Thursday. Like a good lapdog, Bob immediately came running to trash the bill that would do what scientists say is necessary to protect Hampton Roads. Instead, McDonnell announced his plan to deal with the crisis -- tax cuts:

We can reduce carbon emissions, and clean up our environment, without raising taxes on Virginia citizens and increasing unemployment. We must encourage companies to innovate by providing tax incentives for environmentally-friendly construction, energy efficient workplaces and establishment of environmentally-friendly sustainability programs. The cap and trade legislation under consideration is exactly the wrong approach to take. It is a heavy-handed big government approach based on ideology, not science.

This is the George W. Bush approach to governance. Tax cuts as a catchall prescription for any problem, blind faith in unregulated markets to solve all our problems, and putting politics ahead of science.

Virginia voters rejected four more years of the Bush approach last November. Looks like they'll get a chance to do it again this year.

Hampton Roads in 2100: Average Storms Become Isabels

When it comes to flooding, the Hampton Roads area is already the second-most-vulnerable area in the country behind New Orleans. So what happens when sea levels rise about two feet (the conservative projection) over the next century due to global warming?

With a mouse-click, Lockheed Martin analyst Chris Mang showed the impact of a routine winter nor'easter striking on top of the higher water level. Large parts of the city went underwater, much as they did during Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

"In a hundred years, even your average storm becomes a real problem," Mang said. And a hurricane with Isabel's punch would cause far more damage than Isabel did.

Mang detailed the disturbing projections at yesterday's Virginia Commission on Climate Change meeting in Williamsburg.

Some business interests opposed to climate action tried to use the meeting to attack the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, the climate legislation due to come before the Senate in June. They also argued that even in the face of the flood projections, Virginia should do nothing to confront climate change. Fortunately, commissioners fought back:

Keith McCoy, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, said a patchwork of carbon dioxide emission limits by states would create confusion and possibly prompt industries to move to less restrictive states, with no net loss in emissions.

McCoy said polls suggest that while people want to reduce greenhouse gases, "they don't want to give up their SUVs, and they don't want to turn down their thermostats."

One commission member called McCoy "plain wrong."

You can view the slides of all of the presentations at the commission's website.

How Many Countries Does It Take to Equal VA's Emissions?

From the National Environmental Trust's "Taking Responsibility: Why the United States Must Lead the World in Reducing Global Warming Pollution" report:

Virginia, with its population of 7,769,233, emits more greenhouse gases than that of 83 developing countries, with combined populations totaling over half a billion people.

What does that mean for us? Not just rising temperatures, but rising insecurity:

“Even small increments in further warming will make the difference between severe climate change and catastrophic climate change, the difference between 200 million or a billion people displaced from their homes worldwide,” said Joe Bouchard, delegate-elect from Norfolk, and former Commander of the Norfolk Naval Station. “Unfortunately, these displacements are likely to make unstable parts of the world much more unstable, threatening global and national security. Here in Virginia, even a modest rise in sea levels can have a severe impact on all of our coastal military installations.”

You can read the news release here or download the full report here.

Ask The Green Miles: Most Vulnerable to Sea Level Rise?

A question from The Green Miles' dad:

Is there a place that would show a rising ocean first and most dramatically? Would it be Florida, Holland, Venice, Bangladesh, some Pacific Island group, or where? Or is it too soon for that kind of extrapolation?

Too soon? The impacts are already right here in my backyard. No fewer than 13 islands in the Chesapeake Bay have already been swallowed up by rising sea level. According to a recent National Wildlife Federation report, over the last century air temperatures in the Bay region have risen 1.4 degrees, water temperatures are up two degrees, and sea levels have risen two feet. That's due mostly to thermal expansion (warmer water takes up more space than cooler water), not melting glaciers or ice caps as commonly though.

But back to the question. Obviously I am not a scientist, so my answer will be more subjective based on what I've seen and read, but this is a blog and you should know this already. In the US, the these are the areas that are most screwed when it comes to rising sea levels:

- New Orleans (I know, you're shocked). It's below sea level already and still sinking due to subsidence, the natural compression of land composed of flood deposits. Why hasn't this been a problem until now? Because before people came along, the land would sink, then Mississippi would flood and retreat, leaving a layer of sand and silt to build it back up. Then we decided to put levees up and build on the floodplain. Now there's just sinking, no silting.
- Hampton Roads, VA (Hampton/Norfolk/Newport News/Virginia Beach), just a few feet above sea level and home to major naval installations.
- Miami, three feet above sea level.
- Lower Manhattan and its hundreds of miles of subway tunnels.

All of the above are not only below or right at sea level but are in prime hurricane landfall zones. But let's be honest - as the richest country in the world, America can afford to build flood barriers or even relocate key populations without a devastating economic impact. Globally, it's the poor nations that can't afford to adapt that will be hit the hardest.

Island nations just a few meters above sea level like The Maldives face grave threats, but for total number of people threatened, I'd have to go with Bangladesh. Not like they're so safe and sound to begin with - a recent cyclone killed 3,400 people, about twice as many people as killed by Hurricane Katrina. One estimate says just a 1.5 meter rise in sea level could affect 17 million people in Bangladesh.

The most frightening part about sea level rise is that no one can truly say how fast it will occur. The human brain tends to think of everything as rational and directly related - a 1% rise in temperature will result in a 1% rise in sea level. But as anyone who has ever, say, made ice knows, at the margin a one degree difference is all it takes to go from solid ice to water.

How will we know if and when we're approaching a similar tipping point? The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change has more or less punted on the issue, focusing on sea level rise probability due to known factors like thermal expansion. Now Arctic Sea ice is retreating faster than even the most pessimistic projections. Can anyone say definitively that Greenland's ice sheet, with its potential to raise sea levels 20 feet, won't beat expectations as well?

Wikipedia can tell you much more about sea level rise. And if you have a question about the environment, ask The Green Miles!

Senate Hearing Highlights Warming's Threat to VA's Coast

I was lucky enough to be able to attend yesterday's Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on how global warming will impact the Chesapeake Bay (I work for the National Wildlife Federation). Gov. Tim Kaine and Sen. Jim Webb testified and Sen. John Warner sits on the committee.

Gov. Kaine did a masterful job of laying out the threats Virginia faces and calling for a national cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions:

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine told a Senate committee that low-lying Hampton Roads is considered the second most vulnerable population center in the country to rising sea levels linked to global warming. Only New Orleans is more exposed, he said.

"My message to you," Kaine told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, "is that each day that legislative action is delayed will have negative consequences for the Chesapeake Bay."

Also at the hearing, the NWF released a new report on how global warming will impact the Bay's fish and wildlife.When Kaine mentioned Virginia is a national leader in technology jobs, Sen. Warner said he hoped Virginia would soon be a national leader in "green collar" jobs -- producing low-carbon-emissions technologies. Neither Gov. Kaine nor I had heard the term, but we both had the same reaction -- excellent nickname for the industry!

In addition, the morning featured a bit of political theater, with some fireworks between Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and America's leading climate change denier, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).

You can read transcripts and watch video of the entire hearing at the Senate EPW Committee website.

Cross-posted from Raising Kaine