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I commented earlier on efforts of North Carolina lawmakers to thwart climate-change effects—or at least predictions of the effects—through legislation. They may be too late, based on this excerpt from a Boston Globe article: “The seas along the East Coast from North Carolina to New England are rising three to four times faster than the global average, and coastal cities, utilities, beaches, and wetlands are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, especially from storm surges, according to the U.S. Geological Survey study published Sunday.”
My earlier post commented on a potential 1-m rise in sea levels by 2100; the Globe article says a rise of just 2.5 feet, “…it could take little more than a Nor’easter to put much of the Back Bay, East Boston, South Boston, Chelsea, Cambridge, and elsewhere underwater, including much of Logan International Airport and the financial district.”
No word yet on whether Massachusetts legislators will be riding attempting to ride to the rescue like their counterparts in North Carolina. The Globe does report that state officials have changed codes governing construction in flood-prone areas and are developing incentives to discourage construction in hazardous areas.
The Globe does cite Bob Dean, a retired professor of civil and coastal engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, as saying that the study may be highlighting a cycle, rather than a trend. “We should be careful with the data to make sure this is not a short-term change,” the Globe quotes him as saying. “It’s expensive to underestimate sea-level rise, but it’s also expensive to base planning on overestimates.”