John Jacob |
With a zombie invasion dominating most end-of-the-world theories,
destruction by a rise in sea level seems hardly as dramatic. Yet researchers
are predicting this may not be so far-fetched. According to Texas A&M
University researcher and one of the state’s leading coastal development
experts, sea-level rise is not the type of looming coastal natural hazard that
announces itself with the roaring bravado of a hurricane, but it is there, in
the details of the storm, and will only get worse in the absence of public
sentiment to address the issue.
Sea level along the Texas Gulf Coast is rising by a fraction of an inch
each year, but this increase is expected to accelerate and possibly inundate
one of the state’s most profitable and environmentally diverse regions. As a
first step in addressing the problem at the state level, The University of Texas’s
Bureau of Economic Geology and Energy Institute recently released a report from
a workshop it held last year at the university’s Marine Science Institute in
Port Aransas to identify the current status of sea level rise along the Texas
Gulf Coast and to assess risks to the region’s ecosystems, communities, and
economy.
The report, “The Risk of
Rising Sea Level: Texas Universities Ready and Able to Help Coastal Communities
Adapt” presents the findings of the workshop’s 28 participating scientists
from six of Texas’s leading academic institutions, including Texas Sea Grant,
along with representatives from the nonprofit, governmental, and private
sectors. The report goes on to cite a recent study by Entergy, a
power-generating utility based in Louisiana that serves East Texas, which
estimated that the current value of Gulf Coast energy assets is $800 billion.
Sea-level rise is not a “someday” event. It is already a fact of life
in Texas. Current data show coastal water levels are rising about one-fifth of
an inch per year, which is about five times the rate seen during the previous
4,000 years and one of the highest rates reported globally, according to the
report. It goes on to state that the current rate of sea-level rise in Texas is
expected to accelerate further, doubling or even tripling by the end of the
21st century as a warming atmosphere fuels further expansion of the oceans and
threatens to melt significant portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets.
In fact by 2100, much of the Texas coast will most likely be under at
least a foot of water and as much as six feet of water.
The rising Gulf of Mexico will directly impact Texas’s 18 coastal counties
that account for less than six percent of the state’s landmass but are home to
almost a quarter of its 2010 population. According to the report, Texas’
coastal population is growing more than twice as fast as the rest of the state.
Many of these issues are also discussed in Richard A. Davis, Jr.’s
book, Sea-Level
Change in the Gulf of Mexico. The book examines various causes and
effects of rising and falling sea levels in the Gulf of Mexico, beginning with
the Gulf’s geological birth over 100 million years ago, and focusing on the
last 20,000 years, when global sea levels began rising as the glaciers of the
last major ice age melted.
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