Cutting Edge Research

Coastal Impact Study:
Nation Under Siege

One Meter Sea Level Rise... and Rising

Beginning with just one meter of sea level rise, the impact on the US would be calamitous, having the potential to destabilize many areas of the country.

The US populace has been somewhat complacent thus far in aggressively confronting global warming. There is the notion, advanced by both the media and the many studies on the impacts of climate change, that the wealthier countries in the West will be best able to adapt, and the underdeveloped countries will bear the brunt of the impacts. As illustrated here, this is clearly not the case; the US is vulnerable at very small increments of sea level rise.

Starting in East Boston and moving down along the East Coast, around Florida and over to the Gulf of Mexico, then up along the West Coast and ending with the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, a picture of inundation, population displacement and catastrophic property loss develops.

With a business-as-usual approach, where fossil-fuel consumption and GHG emissions continue to increase, we will likely see a warming of 2 °C to 3 °C this century with a planetary energy imbalance sufficient to melt enough ice to raise sea level by several meters.

Once the process of ice sheet disintegration begins, the impact on the US is unremitting, and at each additional increment, additional cities and towns will be adversely affected.

During the last interglacial period, 125,000 years ago, when the earth was this warm (2 °C to 3 °C warmer), sea level was four to six meters higher than today.

  

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Foreword
Introduction
Sea Level Rise
Visual Imaging
One Meter of Sea Level Rise... and Rising
A Lesson Learned?
Current Trends
Timeline
Fossil Fuels and Climate Change
The Power of Coal
Silver Bullet: Moratorium on Coal
Replacing Coal
The 2030 Challenge
Been There, Done That
Revisiting Katrina
Conclusions
Appendix

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