New England: ‘Fighting a losing battle with the sea’
By Beth Daley, Boston Globe Staff
3 April 2011 SCITUATE — A piercing wail startled Gary and Paula Elsmore awake at 3 a.m. Paula knelt on the bed and peered out the upstairs bedroom window. In the blinding snow, she could barely make out a neighbor waving up at her frantically. The ocean was coming. Fierce seas had overtopped a sea wall about three blocks away, and the roiling water was now heading straight toward the Elsmores’ neighborhood. “You could see the storm surge, it was bending all the backyard fences one way as it came in,’’ Paula Elsmore said of that late December night. The Elsmores’ basement filled with 5 feet of water, and flames billowed into the dark sky from two nearby houses that flooded and caught fire. Their neighbors’ young children had to be evacuated from their house by a bucket loader. In all, some 400 homes were swamped. The ocean’s fury is an omnipresent threat for the growing number of people who live at its edge. But accumulating scientific evidence suggests that our warming climate could cause sea levels to rise faster than previously thought, making storm surges like the one that pummeled Scituate more dangerous. Several lines of research now indicate that a 3-foot global rise by 2100 is a plausible scenario, though some scientists forecast a smaller rise. In other words, what was once a problem for our great great-grandchildren is one our children could confront. And it is possible the news could be even worse in the Northeast. Studies show that changes in ocean circulation driven by warming waters could raise sea levels an additional foot or more along New England shores by the end of the century. Already, 65 acres of prime Massachusetts coastal real estate is swallowed by the sea every year; ocean waters have crept up about a foot here in the last century. While more land will be eaten away, storm surges — abnormal rises of water during severe weather — layered on top of higher seas could push much further inland, especially in flat coastal areas of New England, and oceanside homes in places like Scituate and Gloucester will be even more vulnerable. Some scientists say that climate change may also bring fiercer and more frequent storms. Deeply concerned over the projected sea level rise, state officials commissioned a massive inventory of publicly owned sea walls and other coastal barriers four years ago. Almost 165 structures, whose failure would result in significant property damage, were declared in fair, poor, or critical condition, but only a fraction of them have been fixed because of the budget crisis. The price tag to repair and fortify all of them against rising seas is huge: more than a billion dollars. …
