Climate change poses grave risks to our coasts and the risks are escalating, according to a new federal report.
The document, "Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities: 2012 Technical Input Report to the 2013 National Climate Assessment," is coauthored by Tony MacDonald, director of the Urban Coast Institute at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.
Here are some excerpts:
- Global warming is expected to accelerate sea-level rise as glaciers and ice sheets melt and sea water expands.
- There's high confidence that as the global climate gets warmer and ice sheets melt, coastal cities and low-lying areas will be increasingly exposed to erosion, inundation and flooding.
- There's high confidence that expanding economic and population growth along the coast significantly increases the risk of harm. Since 1980, roughly half of the USA's new residential building permits were issued in coastal counties. That substantially increases vulnerability and risk of loss.
- There's high confidence that storm surge flooding and sea-level rise pose significant threats to public and private infrastructure that provides energy, sewage treatment, clean water and transportation. The result: increased threats to public health, safety and employment in the coastal zone.
- Coastal shorelines will retreat and low-lying areas will tend to be inundated more often, and possibly permanently, by the advancing sea.
- As temperature increases and rainfall patterns change, soil moisture and runoff to the coast are likely to change.
- An increase in the intensity of extremes such as storms and heat spells, along with other impacts of climate change and the effects of development, could affect the sustainability of many coastal communities and natural resources.
- State and federal governments play a major role in facilitating planning to adapt to climate change, but most coastal adaptation steps will be implemented locally. Local governments are largely responsible for making critical, basic land-use and public investment decisions and working with community stakeholders to adapt.
