With oil threatening Florida’s coastlines and fragile ecosystems right as we speak it is admittedly difficult to think about threats that will not arrive for many decades. Still, however, a growing body of scientific evidence is pointing towards a very urgent message: the threats of global climate disturbance can simply no longer be ignored.
In what was seemingly his former life, Florida Governor Charlie Crist instructively warned that “the conditions of weather and rising water levels will have the most profound impact on [his] state than any other” (Swartz 2007). Being a low-elevation peninsula, surrounded by both the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the west, sea level rise undoubtedly represents the state’s biggest threat. Figure 1 (below) painfully illustrates the areas that would likely be covered with just a 70 cm (about 2.3 feet) or greater rise in sea level.
To many in the scientific community, though, any estimation of sea level rise that amounts to less than a meter (about 3.3 feet) is clearly conservative. This is especially true considering the empirical data of just the past few years which suggests an “anomalous” acceleration of global sea level rise (Mitchum, Merrifield and Merrifield 2009). During the period between 1962 and 1990, the average global rise in sea levels was 1.5 +/- 0.5 mm per year. In sharp contrast, and quite alarmingly, this average global rise in sea levels has accelerated to 3.2 +/- 0.4 mm per year (Mitchum, Merrifield and Merrifield 2009).[1] For no state is this worse news than Florida.
Even assuming the better case scenario of 70 cm sea level rise, the impact on Florida would still be near catastrophic. Looking back to Figure 1, sea level rise below 1.5 meters –which according to the EPA is likely to happen within the next 120 years – will cover the Florida Keys, the Florida Everglades, Florida’s very southern tip, and parts of Miami with water (assuming, of course, no $100 billion adaptation projects are undertaken – projects which would likely turn Florida’s coast line into a giant sea wall and destroy the state’s massive tourism industry).
I don’t have to explain what the loss of these areas would mean, but I will highlight a couple key points. For starters, in the year 2000, the Miami Urbanized Area was ranked fifth overall in the U.S. in terms of population (4,919,036). It is the home to the largest cruise-ship port in the world, the nation’s second-largest concentration of international banks, the nation’s third most impressive skyline (according to the Almanac of Architecture and Design), and a $17.1 billion annual tourism industry (Ortiz 2008). The loss of the Everglades, and its vast web of biodiversity and habitats, would be an equally troubling blow to our state – a fact that becomes even more elucidated when considering the co-dependency of many of Florida’s other unique and valuable ecosystems on the wetlands, particularly the coral reefs. In short, floods from rising sea levels critically threaten both Florida’s economic and natural capital.
Unfortunately, the destructive forces of rising sea levels extend further. Recreational and commercial fisheries will be particularly vulnerable, especially in light of the fact that many fishery species are already facing severe stress from overfishing , habitat destruction, and water quality degradation. Most significantly, climate change is expected to fundamentally alter many of the biological processes involved in fishery production. The seagrasses and mangroves that provide an essential nursery for many of Florida’s fish species will likely be forced to rapidly move inland in response to the altered depth of their current locations. Seagrasses, which are particularly sensitive to changes in light penetration, water depth and precipitation-induced turbidity are likely to experience a precipitous decline as a result. Mangroves, by contrast, have a better chance of moving inland, but they will take the place of freshwater fishery habitats and, thus, pose an entirely new set of ecological challenges (Shenker 2009).
After fisheries, sea level rise poses problems in a number of other areas as well. These include, but are certainly not limited to, beach erosion, saltwater intrusion into critical water supplies and increased coastal property vulnerability to erosion and flooding (Parkinson 2009). With regard to the latter point on coastal properties, it is important to highlight the fact that most coastal areas in Florida are currently managed under the assumption that sea level rise won’t be a problem. Parkinson describes this impending dilemma quite well: “With a design life of 30 yrs to 75 yrs or more, many of these [coastal] investments are on a collision course with rising sea level and the resulting impacts will be significant” (2009). Not to number drop or anything, but the current valuation of Florida coastal property is currently estimated at $2 trillion (AIR Worldwide Corporation 2005).
Let’s stop this next environmental catastrophe before it reaches our shores. Ask your Senators to vote for the Kerry-Boxer Climate Bill.
[1] These data are based on trends observed over 15-year intervals. They are “computed for each tide gauge record, averaged over latitude bands, and combined to form an area-weighted global mean trend. The uncertainty of the global trend is specified as a sampling error plus a random vertical land motion component, but land motion corrections do not change the results” (Mitchum, Merrifield and Merrifield 2009, p. 5772).
