ODU aims to become hub for research on rising sea level
Excerpts from an article by Scott Harper, The Virginian-Pilot
Photo credit: Stephen M. Katz, Virginian-Pilot file photo
Old Dominion University unveiled an initiative this month, under a directive from ODU President John R. Broderick, to become a national hub for research, teaching and expertise in rising sea levels related to climate change. The university’s initiative includes at least $200,000 and a commitment to pursue federal grants to hire faculty, conduct research and expand climate change in the university’s curriculum across all schools for a truly interdisciplinary study.
“We are forced to take very seriously the scientific evidence that predicts the ocean’s rise of 2 feet or more before the end of the century,” Broderick said. “It’s as if we live in a climate-science fishbowl here on the Virginia coast.”
Given its swampy, low-lying nature and the fact that land is slowly sinking, Hampton Roads for years has been forecast to be the second-most vulnerable region to elevating seas in America, behind only New Orleans, and tenth in the world.
Whether the phenomenon is linked to global warming doesn’t matter, school officials said. The reality is, coastal waters are rising – by between 15 and 17 inches over the past century - making shoreline areas more susceptible to storms, flooding and tidal surges.
Economist and ODU President Emeritus Dr. James Koch, in his annual State of the Region report this year, called sea-level rise “the problem of the 21st century” for Hampton Roads, and especially for Norfolk, with all of its shipyards, industries and Navy facilities located so close to the water’s edge.
“Only those with no concern for the future can afford to ignore this development,” the report said. It was Koch who approached Broderick about pushing the issue more at ODU, said Larry Atkinson, a university oceanographer who has been leading the effort quietly since this summer.
Atkinson has been meeting for months with faculty and staff from different colleges across the Norfolk campus, including engineering, business and performing arts, seeking ideas and interest.
“I’ve encountered nothing but encouragement,” Atkinson said. “We want to get more involved in this issue. And frankly, given our location in an urban, coastal environment, we’re in a unique position to do so.
The Blue Planet Forum was held on the same day as ODU’s announcement. The event, hosted by Nauticus, Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Old Dominion University’s Office of Community Engagement (ODU), was moderated by Cathy Lewis, Public Broadcasting host for WHRV-FM’s 89.5 HearSay with Cathy Lewis and WHRO TV’s What Matters.
By Missy Schmidt, Communication Manager, Hampton Roads Partnership
Rear Admiral David Titley, PhD, Oceanographer of the Navy and Director of Task Force Climate Change (TFCC) spoke about the threats of climate change and how the Navy is preparing to cope with them. (See TFCC on Facebook)
Will Baker, President and CEO of CBF, introduced the Rear Admiral by saying “sea level rise will only exacerbate the Chesapeake Bay’s problems. We’re finally starting on the right side of the curve with dead zones starting to retreat. The gains are modest and progress is fragile.”
RADM Titley said, “we’re operating in nature’s casino and I intend to count the cards” as he described going from a skeptic to where he is today. Long term research shows the Arctic has changed from a region of hard, multi-year ice layers to ice that forms and melts year to year. NASA has measured the sun’s output as the same over the last fifty years. The amount of heat displaced has not been constant, though; it’s released into our lower atmosphere causing the Earth to heat.
“Some really small trace amounts have great effects,” said Titley. The right balance of greenhouse gases is needed; too much or too little is bad.
The TFCC engages nearly 450 individuals from over 125 organizations including interagency, international, national and Department of Defense, the scientific, academic and analytical communities.
The Arctic, the world’s smallest estuary, explained Titley, will experience ice-free conditions for a month by 2030, 2-3 months by mid century. Shipping and trade will expand there. By his estimates, in 40 years or so, the Bering Strait (pictured below, from space) will be a high traffic trade route.
“Where trade routes are, the Navy will be there providing protection,” said Titley as to the Navy’s interest in sea level rise, estimated to be one meter by 2030.
Glaciers hold the secrets to sea level rise as warmer water seeps in; they are no longer grounded in the oceans as their bottoms melt. They’re floating and spreading apart.
The Navy’s concerns are also on physical impacts such as inundation, erosion and infrastructure challenges and reduced mission capability. New opportunities are emerging to form sea level rise adaptation partnerships, for instance with the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SEDRP). Hampton Roads is in the first tier of studies with a report due in 2012.
Ocean acidification is an unfortunate byproduct of global warming and has occurred more in the past 150 years than has changed naturally in 150,000 years. The ocean is where the heat, about 80% of it. As we better understand the ocean, we also forecast better what to expect 30 years from now. Resource: U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program
“Where will the 1 billion people who globally depend on the ocean for food eat?” asked Titley.
As regions of the world become unstable over competition for water, food and other resources with the world population growth toward the estimated 9 billion, sea level rise becomes an even greater national security issue.
Navy adaptation activity is at work to improve understanding and ensure readiness and resilience. They insert climate education into Navy training and are working to reduce the Navy’s carbon footprint by half by 2020 through improving energy efficiency and increasing alternative energy use.
“How do you answer climate change skeptics?” asked one attendee. RADM Titley said he simply walks them through the physics. The combined data says that climate is changing. One should never trust just ONE data point, but when all are combined does it all align?
“Conspiracy theories can’t happen if over 3000 scientists and academics are required to keep the secret,” added Titley.
2 comments
HR Partnership
December 15, 2010 at 5:09 pm (UTC -4)
Rx for Hampton Roads: Deal with sea level rise now
The Virginian-Pilot
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/11/rx-hampton-roads-deal-sea-level-rise-now
© November 21, 2010
By Skip Stiles
News stories, economic forecasts, scientific reports: All that is being said about sea level rise and flooding in Hampton Roads makes for a sobering diagnosis. Like a patient sitting on a cold, metal examining table getting bad news from his doctor, we have every right to express our anger and denial.
After all, our region has a water-dependent economy, and our waterfront has started to move, threatening our future.
Our current rate of sea level rise, 1-1/2 feet in the past century, is predicted to double in the coming 100 years, simultaneously threatening all three pillars of our economy: the military, the shipping/shipbuilding/ship repair sectors and tourism.
Virginia has the highest rate of sea level rise on the East Coast. Hampton Roads is ranked 10th in the world for assets at risk from sea level rise. This region is the country’s largest population center at greatest risk from sea level rise outside of New Orleans.
The region’s shoreline military bases are worried about sea level rise, with the potential to make the closure of Joint Forces Command and the threatened aircraft carrier transfer look like minor disruptions.
Insurance companies are bailing out on us. Nationwide, Allstate, Farmers, State Farm, Virginia Mutual, USAA and many other providers are withdrawing coverage or limiting new policies along our tidal shoreline.
At this rate, our Oceanfront resort may be left with Lloyds of London, the insurer of last resort.
Virginia’s neighboring coastal states, neither of which faces the magnitude of risk we do, are already taking action. Maryland has devoted significant state funds on plans to deal with sea level rise. North Carolina has spent its money and ours as well, earmarking millions of dollars in federal funds to aid its effort.
Despite the clear risk here, Virginia has done little.
Little, that is, except poke sticks at those in federal government who would help us, as our attorney general sues the federal government to stop its climate change efforts.
It seems that as with every other major public policy challenge, Hampton Roads is being left to solve its own problems. In this case, we are solving them.
Virginia Beach’s current long-range comprehensive land-use plan discusses climate change and sea level rise. Portsmouth’s floodplain management plan addresses sea level rise, as does Poquoson’s and Gloucester’s. Hampton has a citizens’ committee looking at flooding there.
Chesapeake has a sustainability initiative. Norfolk leads the region in looking at coastal flooding. Accomack and Northampton counties are planning for sea level rise, helped by the Nature Conservancy’s paying to digitally map the entire Eastern Shore.
The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission has a climate change study underway, is looking at regional transportation vulnerability to climate change and will be including sea level rise in its revised regional hazard mitigation plan. Our regional economic development plan, Vision Hampton Roads, points to the challenges of sea level rise.
These actions push us beyond our denial to find our strength. They will help Hampton Roads define itself using the textbook definition of resilience, “the ability to absorb and even benefit from adversity.”
We’re already a resilient place. We’ve endured being burned to the ground a few times, invaded once (twice if you count the Yankees), lost a large part of our population in the 1855 yellow fever epidemic and survived other threats great and small.
With our early planning, we are starting to find ways to absorb the adversity of sea level rise. We can even envision how to benefit from it economically, once we see that change brings opportunity.
We’re getting wet now, but Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Miami and the rest of the East Coast ports will get wet as well in coming years and will have to address sea level rise. By moving today to deal with our flooding, we’ll steal the march on them.
We can be the first to develop novel adaptation approaches and get ahead of the game. Then we can sell these approaches to other areas, becoming a center of innovation.
All coastal cities will need port systems that are flexible, shipbuilding and repair facilities that move with the higher tides, novel approaches to coastal adaptation (that also preserve valuable shoreline environments), modeling and simulation programs that help plan for change, economic and social analysis of future impacts, and dozens of other efforts.
The pieces of a regional partnership are in place to do this work. Old Dominion University and the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences have smart people, and the modeling and simulation industry can guide us.
The Navy is making plans under the chief of Naval Operation’s Task Force Climate Change. Major corporations along our shoreline are part of an ongoing conversation on responding to storm surges.
All we’re lacking is an image to galvanize our action, a concrete goal to organize the region around.
Try this: A strong Category 1 hurricane with a four-foot storm surge is headed here. In slow motion. Imagine Hurricane Isabel coming back over the next century but, unfortunately, it won’t go away after landfall. The flood line from that storm will define our shoreline in 2110.
We need to prepare for this future storm with the same focus and determination we display when a real hurricane turns northwest at Bermuda. With this one, we have the time to rebuild and repair infrastructure, steer development to higher ground, amortize current investments and vested rights in shoreline property, and make other needed adjustments.
We can gradually position ourselves not only to stay dry but to take advantage of what we learn along the way.
Make no mistake; this will be expensive and disruptive. However, just as with the seriously ill patient, the cost and pain will increase with each day’s delay.
For Hampton Roads, as with the patient, taking action now is the single choice we have.
Skip Stiles is executive director of Wetlands Watch, a Norfolk-based, statewide environmental organization. E-mail him at skip.stiles@wetlandswatch.org.
Jennifer Doherty
April 15, 2012 at 11:55 am (UTC -4)
Hello, This is such an excellent article,
So if an island nation is submerged beneath the ocean, does it maintain its membership in the United Nations? Who is responsible for the citizens? Do they travel on its passport? Who claims and enforces offshore mineral and fishing rights in waters around a submerged nation? International law currently has no answers to such questions.
United Nations Ambassador Phillip Muller of the Marshall Islands said there is no sense of urgency to find not only those answers, but also to address the causes of climate change, which many believe to be responsible for rising ocean levels.
“Even if we reach a legal agreement sometime soon, which I don’t think we will, the major players are not in the process,” Muller said.
Those players, the participants said, include industrial nations such as the United States and China that emit the most carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases. Many climate scientists say those gases are responsible for global warming. Mary-Elena Carr of Columbia University’s Earth Institute said what is now an annual sea level rise of a few millimeters will increase dramatically by the year 2100. “The biggest challenge is to preserve their nationality without a territory,” said Bogumil Terminski from the University of Geneva. International legal experts are discovering climate change law, and the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is a case in point: The Polynesian archipelago is doomed to disappear beneath the ocean. Now lawyers are asking what sort of rights citizens have when their homeland no longer exists.
t present, however, there appear to be at least three possibilities that could advance the international debate about ‘climate refugee’ protections and fill existing gaps in international law.
The first option is to revise the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees to include climate (or environmental) refugees and to offer legal protections similar to those for refugees fleeing political persecution. A second, more ambitious option is to negotiate a completely new convention, one that would try to guarantee specific rights and protections to climate or environmental ‘refugees`.