Over the next century, most of the barrier islands on Virginia’s Eastern Shore would be lost, the ocean would breach into Back Bay in Virginia Beach and local rivers would swell and cover more than 10,000 acres of undeveloped land in Hampton Roads, a new study about global warming concludes.
The study released Thursday by the National Wildlife Federation provides one of the most detailed and localized forecasts of what might happen in the Chesapeake Bay region if climate change continues unabated.
Its conclusions are based on conservative assumptions about rising sea levels around the Bay – about 2 feet higher in coastal Virginia by 2100 – and uses computer modeling to create what-if maps of specific geographic areas, from Hampton Roads to Baltimore to Delaware Bay.
The results are not pretty: Ocean beaches decline by 58 percent along the mid-Atlantic coast; 161,000 acres of brackish marshes go underwater; 167,000 acres of dry lands are gone and replaced by open water or salt marshes.
“Even under the low-end scenarios, of sea levels rising 1 to 2 feet, there’ll be significant changes throughout the Bay,” said Patty Glick, a senior global-warming specialist with the National Wildlife Federation, based in Northern Virginia. “We absolutely have to deal with sea-level rise.”
Glick and others urged Congress to pass a bill, co-sponsored by Virginia Sen. John Warner, a Republican, that would set a national cap on greenhouse-gas emissions and let industries buy, sell and trade pollution credits in order to meet new limits.
This “cap-and-trade” proposal is scheduled for a Senate vote next month.
Group leaders also recommended that federal, state and local agencies start factoring in global warming with their coastal planning and construction of new utilities and roads, and to limit or prohibit new development in areas likely to be swamped by rising waters.
The governors of Virginia and Maryland have both convened climate change commissions to study and then recommend specific actions for reducing emissions linked to global warming in their states.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has called for a 30 percent cut in such emissions in Virginia by 2025, a mark that would be about what was pumped into the atmosphere in 2000.
Skip Stiles, a Norfolk resident and environmentalist who sits on Virginia’s climate commission, said the new study and its computer maps provide some of the best visual clarity, which brings home a key point that he and others have been making for years – sea levels are rising now, are rising faster than 100 years ago, and that people who live and work in coastal areas better wake up and take action.
“Norfolk’s very future is dependent on how we respond to sea-level rise,” Stiles said.
One of the biggest losers, according to the study, is the Eastern Shore in both Virginia and Maryland.
Flat, low-lying and sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, the Eastern Shore is expected to see its barrier islands and coastal marshes nearly vanish in the next 100 years. As much as 90 percent of all tidal marshes could be swamped by rising seas by then, the study says.
Popular Eastern Shore beaches in Chincoteague and Assateague are expected to be “overwashed” by the ocean and nibbled away by increased erosion, according to the study.
The study uses the same estimates as those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international coalition of scientists who won a Nobel Peace Prize for their work in unraveling the complexities of global warming.
Last year, the IPCC concluded with 90 percent certainty that human activity and the burning of fossil fuels have greatly contributed to warming conditions around the world.
Still, many skeptics remain, especially in the United States. They insist global warming is a hoax, a miscalculation of weather data and trends.
President Bush withdrew from Kyoto Treaty negotiations with other nations to cut emissions, though he believes global warming is real. All three presidential candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties are calling for a national program to tackle the phenomenon.
Emmett Duffy, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, said climate change is bringing spring about three weeks early to Virginia these days when compared to the 1960s.
Duffy said the Bay already has gotten a taste of global warming’s impacts. In 2005, unusually warm water conditions killed huge swaths of eel grass in the lower Bay, erasing a key habitat for crabs and fish and a source of oxygen in the water.
While some of the grass beds have started to grow back, Duffy said many have not – a harbinger of what might be coming with warmer summer and spring temperatures.
“Global warming is not a future threat to the Bay,” Duffy said. “It’s a threat now.”
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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Fraud
"Tatu, I think you just answered my question. Rip currents, yada yada, have everything to do with the sandbars and normal wave action and the tide."
I am still laughing. Literally, laughing out loud. Even freshmem students could have dented my argument more effectively than you..."the geologist." So your not going to explain to the class that the current is opposite on each side of the rip current? Even that a freshman could have beat down. LOL!
"As for the polar ice caps melting, I like the Wyoming idea, but put 3 ice cubes in a glass of water and let them melt. The level of water will not rise or fall because the mass is the same, so the displacement remains constant whether the cubes are solid or liquid."
Please explain how displacement comes into this? If a large part of the glacial ice is not in the sea, then it is added to the sum. If the ice cubes are on the counter and then added to the glass of water the level does rise. Your a fraud.
Re: Mark Twain
Well said!! Well Researched!!
Jack Simple
Getting together in one place doesn't make the village idiots a majority.
Before you start thinking that you and other flat earthers are anything but a nutty fringe, take a look at a recent Gallop poll:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106660/Little-Increase-Americans-Global-Warming-worries.aspx
Six out of 10 Americans believe we are already feeling the affects of global warming. Only one out of ten Americans shares your delusional belief that global warming is a "crock".
Unfortunately, only a third of Americans are very worried about global warming and think we must take action now.
That's because most people are like you. They don't care whether they are right or wrong - someone else, probably our children, will pay the steepest price for our ignorance and arrogance.
Missing The Big Picture
While you're all bickering, you're missing the big picture. Solar activity has an impact on our atmosphere as the sun moves through its life cycle. The spinning of the earth's core is slowing down, as is normal in a planet's life cycle. As it slows, the earth's gravitational field will continue to weaken, leaving the planet vulnerable to the effects of solar flares and coronal mass ejections as the sun expands. This is changing the chemistry of our atmosphere in ways we don't understand.
We can argue about global warming, but it's only a phase within a cycle. We're born. We grow, live, and try to take care of ourselves, but weeventually die. Planets are no different. Doesn't it just make sense that we should clean up behind ourselves and leave the planet in decent shape for our children to enjoy? It's a nice planet, relatively speaking.
I love it!!
I'm counting at least twenty to one in favor of seeing through this crock of bull for what it is.
If you can't beat 'em, join'em
I think I'll open a store selling crystal balls!!!!
Global warming is a trend
Global warming is a natural trend that will continue regardless of the levels of CO2 produced. The doomsday predictions will not comment on the evidence - proven - not concluded, that show over the past centuries as temperature averages moved downward, CO2 continued to increased and conversely, as the temperatures were increasing, the CO2 levels were still in a downward trend. Temperatures are going to change regardless of what we do. We can clean up the air, which is a goal but that will not change the natural environmental changes from occurring. The press rejects stories on significant solar activity change over the last decade or so and how in the past, activity was noted significant with climate change. It is all going to happen no matter what anyone does.
What Teachers are you talking about?
"The sad thing is our schools have been brain washing our children this garbage for decades; they are warping the minds of so many children to worship the words of the Wildlife experts. I have been struggling to correct that kind of BS knowledge in my own kids.
Most people would agree that human activity cause pollution, what our kids are beening taught is that the earth will one day be unable to sustain human activity and thus change the status of human survival."
OH really? I had no idea I was teaching such things to my students. What do I teach them? Recycle, conserve, etc. Do I tell them that if they don't the world will end? Of COURSE NOT. Why in the world would we want to scare our students? I personally don't want to scare them, so even if I believed that, I wouldn't say that to my students. But perhaps before you believe everything your kids tell you (believe half of what they tell you, and I'll believe half of what they tell me), maybe ask your kids' teachers before you start blaming everything on them.
RE: Falconski
Falconski must have missed the lecture and his degree in Geology. Ira don't argue with him as he is just a birdbrain (falconski name fits him). Every geology book printed has the sand going south from MD to SC down to Florida. Of course this idiot thinks otherwise!!!!
I am telling you people...
You need to listen to AlGore, Manbearpig must be stopped!!!!
GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!
Heck thats nuthin....I sawed Bigfoot and Elvis eatin fried p-nut butter, jelly and bananer sandwiches fer lunch at the Pungo 7-11 today! It's true! I have reel pitchers!
Putting Algore in his place
During an interview with the AP In April 2007, Dr. William Gray, professor emeritus of the atmospheric science department of Colorado State University, called Algore "a gross alarmist" for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming. Dr Gray went on to say, "He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about." Dr. Gray made these comments while attending the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
It get warm, it gets cool
First off, let me say we SHOULD reduce pollution of all types, and we should conserve fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are limited in supply by nature and are needed as the basic feedstock for industry. We should not be burning oil and natural gas that we need to make things. Alternative energy technology is a must for the future. We as a creative people, must move forward. It is rediculous to think that the only way to heat our homes and propel our vehicles is the way it has been done for for the last 100 years. Move forward with technology. New technology will also grow the economy. Second, the Earth warmed and cooled and the seas have risen and fallen long before we were here. It will continue to do so long after we are gone. What makes us think that the present environment is the best one, or the right one? The Earth and it's creatures are amazingly adaptive. Those that don't adapt, die. It has been so for all time.
here we go
Here we go again, Al Gore's Kool-Aid drinkers speaking up again.
tatu
Tatu, I think you just answered my question. Rip currents, yada yada, have everything to do with the sandbars and normal wave action and the tide. You can get stuck on a micro scale if you want, but the east coast of Virginia is a little bigger than the discussion you're trying to smoke screen me into. However, the fact remains that sandbridge is a digressional shoreline and it is 300 feet closer to back bay than it was 110 years ago.
As for the polar ice caps melting, I like the Wyoming idea, but put 3 ice cubes in a glass of water and let them melt. The level of water will not rise or fall because the mass is the same, so the displacement remains constant whether the cubes are solid or liquid.
What about
What about the Polar ice caps melting? I also remember another study that was done some time ago that showed that the entire East Coast will disappear. So maybe if we all move several hundred miles West ... say ... to Wyoming, our property values will go up because we will be sitting on waterfront property.
Imagine No Mosquitoes, no regionalism..
So by next century we won't have environmentalists or the Army Corps? No more permits, marshes or wetlands too? Hard to Imagine! Pools, bulkheads, boatlifts, and docks for everybody in 2100.
falconski
Your making the claims, feel free. However, before you start that, perhaps you could answer the questions I have posed. Could you tell the class what occurs to the longshore current when a rip current forms? What direction does the LSC take when there is a rip current? Please explain the empirical evidence at Sandbridge.
To al lof the other readers, when at the beach, throw something that floats(not litter) and watch which direction it takes. Come back another day with different weather and take note of the direction of travel. After doing this several times you will see what I am saying. Go to the south end of Sandbridge and look for yourself.
Global Warming? Not here!
If Global Warming is occuring, please tell me why here in NH it's so flipping cold...We've gotten above normal snows this year (118 inches that didn't melt until APRIL! >:\ ) and this Spring was so late due to under average cold weather. We have more cows here than you can imagine, so it should be 95 degrees here! ...I think this global warming scare is a bunch of Mooo-larkie!
(It's so cold here that our native black flys have sweatas on!)
All kidding aside; I do think the earth is in a warming trend...but only because of the cycle of orbit around the sun has a lot to do with it. This Global Warming scare is boosting sales for all the green companies and their products. It's the "IN" business now.
lonely blue crab How did I
lonely blue crab
How did I forget thee?
IRA
Lay that educational resume out there Ira.
Such condescension from
Such condescension from Hampton Roads. It seems as though everybody believes himself right. And Faulkner called Steinbeck a lousy reporter--have you read the dialogue in East of Eden? The proof was in the paper pudding. Here is a poem for everyone:
Across the bay
a lonely blue
lazily drifts
toward shore on
a warm
breath of seacurrent
Holding on to the last remaining rolled-up
copy of a long before now extinct
afternoon edition:
The Ledgar-Star.
"Just ask VA Beach public
"Just ask VA Beach public works why they spend each spring taking sand from the north end of Virginia Beach back to the south end because the winter wave action and longshore drift have carried the sand from Rudee Inlet up to the North End."
My education is bit deeper than TCC so there are more people to blame. You must have missed the part about the longshore current being controlled locally by the weather? The sand is deposited to the south of Sandbridge. Go look. The LSC changes, thus the revolving dune lines. Would you care to explain coastal straightening to the class? Your expalnation was overly simplitic and an attempt to prove your argument via false and incomplete information. Anyone who cares can test the water as I have described earlier. It will vary by the local weather and tides. of course sand is being pulled against Rudee Inlet AND the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Some places will lose some and others will gain. Ask anyone who boats out of Oregon Inlet if the Inlets change. Some will close and others will open. None of this discounts global warming though.
More of Tabors "science"
"Falconski, you are correct that there are other processes affecting the coastline negatively, erosion and geologic subsidence among them, but those are not sea level rises, I'm sure you understand that, but many people don't know the difference, it seems"
This statement is weaker than the one you had about the "lack" of sand being the goverments fault. I should start by saying I do not believe falconski is a geologist unless he got an art degree. Sea level rise IS AN OBSERVABLE FACT. It is not a PREDICTATION but an OBSERVATION. I am waiting for you two to get back from measuring the beach at Sandbridge...like I have. Subsidence huh? Erosion is an obvious result of higher water levels. Together you two make two halves of an...loaf of bread?
The sad thing is our schools
The sad thing is our schools have been brain washing our children this garbage for decades; they are warping the minds of so many children to worship the words of the Wildlife experts. I have been struggling to correct that kind of BS knowledge in my own kids.
Most people would agree that human activity cause pollution, what our kids are beening taught is that the earth will one day be unable to sustain human activity and thus change the status of human survival.
Prove to me that BS is true and I will join the fight!
ira and john
Ira, you need to get your tuition back from TCC. Just ask VA Beach public works why they spend each spring taking sand from the north end of Virginia Beach back to the south end because the winter wave action and longshore drift have carried the sand from Rudee Inlet up to the North End.
John, you must be Al Gore. I can back it all up with data and historic and current photographs. What have you got besides your brains as a seat cushion?
What folks don't know
What folks don't understand is these Eco-Nazis are trying to set public policy to engender and expand their powers and position in the world. The BS that comes from these so called experts is pseudo-science that’s based on untested assumptions and over simplified models.
Get this, if the sea's rise that puts more land in control of these communist. That's because every inch of your land with a water table of 18" or less is in under many levels of governmental control. Thus rendering your land useless for any purpose other than for wildlife sanctuary. Every body of water- that includes, lakes, streams, rivers, bays, and ocean is under some sort governmental control. The result of their study is a “sunny” out look for their cause. Don’t mistake their cry as a call to alarm, it’s a cry for more power and more control in the hands of their people in government. Trust me they are not your friends!
What a crock.
This is such a crock. Anybody can create computer "models" and manipulate both the model and the data assumptions to get whatever result they want. The media, Gore et al have got everyone assuming that global warming is happening and will get worse, so of course they will "predict" disaster scenarios like this. Change the assumptions and the computer will spit out predictions of a new ice age. Of course, the Pilot and other media will publish stories like this with little or no critical analysis or even serious questioning.
Like I said, what a crock!
Hook in the Nose
Hmm... Corp America has paid to have a few scientists balk at the overwhelming evidence that global warming exists and is man-made. Think that's crazy? Go back and look at how hard it was to prove cigarettes cause cancer. The question is, why do so many average citizens take the opinion of conservative politicians and rogue scientists over the general scientific community? The answer – because they don’t have the intelligence to think independently. There is no giant conspiracy of scientists to lie about global warming. Who has the motive to lie? The corporations that pollute. Wake Up!!
They can't get tomorrows forecast right and they think...
Do they really think they have a clue of what is going to happen a hundred years from now? What a joke.