Example of coastal flooding in Alamitos Bay, California with 0.25 m of sea level rise and storms. This example illustrate that there are locations with significant flood risks for small amounts of sea level rise when storms are considered. Graphic: Barnard, et al., 2019 / Scientific Reports

Trump officials deleting mentions of “climate change” from U.S. Geological Survey press releases – “It’s an insult to the science”

By Scott Waldman 8 July 2019 (Science) – A March news release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) touted a new study that could be useful for infrastructure planning along the California coastline. At least that’s how President Donald Trump’s administration conveyed it. The news release hardly stood out. It focused on the methodology of […]

Satellite view of East Island, Hawaii before (top) and shortly after (bottom) category 5 Hurricane Walaka in October 2018. Source: Maxar Technologies. Graphic: Jiachuan Wu / NBC News

Three islands disappeared in the past year – The same forces put coastlines around the world at risk – “The sooner we start thinking about this, the less painful it’s going to be”

By Denise Chow 9 June 2019 (NBC News) – Anote Tong can remember when Tebunginako, on the central Pacific island nation of Kiribati, was a thriving village. But beginning in the 1970s, the tide started inching closer to the houses in the village. Over the years, as strong winds whipped up monster waves and climate […]

Aerial view of Staten Island with proposed sea wall indicated. Graphic: Vox.png

Video: New York is building a wall to hold back the ocean

10 June 2019 (Vox) – Climate change is leading to increasingly violent storms. Can seawalls hold back floods? Staten Island recently received funding for a nearly 5-mile-long seawall to protect its coast. But the plan raises a lot of questions. We’re living in a dangerously dynamic world: Hurricanes are getting worse, wildfires are rampant in […]

Abnormal high temperatures in Alaska disrupt isolated communities, upset subsistence hunting patterns, and cause deaths – “It’s hard to characterize this anomaly, it’s just pretty darn remarkable for that part of the world”

By Tim Lydon 29 May 2019 (Hakai Magazine) – Alaska in March is supposed to be cold. Along the north and west coasts, the ocean should be frozen farther than the eye can see. In the state’s interior, rivers should be locked in ice so thick that they double as roads for snowmobiles and trucks. […]

Louisiana unveils ambitious plan to help people get out of the way of climate change

By Christopher Flavelle and Mira Rojanasakul 15 May 2019 (Bloomberg) – Gerard Braud has no plans to leave his handsome Creole-style house with its 15-foot-high front porch on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, a short drive from New Orleans. “Peacefulness and tranquility” is how he explains the appeal of living here. Except that thanks […]

Sea level rise could displace millions of people within two generations

By Jonathan Bamber and Michael Oppenheimer 20 May 2019 (The Conversation) – Antarctica is further from civilisation than any other place on Earth. The Greenland ice sheet is closer to home but around one tenth the size of its southern sibling. Together, these two ice masses hold enough frozen water to raise global mean sea […]

Emma Howard Boyd, UK Environment Agency Chair. Photo: Environment Agency

UK Environment Agency Chair says coastal communities may need to relocate due to rising sea levels – “We can’t win a war against water”

9 May 2019 (Environment Agency) – Launching a major, long-term strategy to tackle flooding and coastal change, Environment Agency Chair, Emma Howard Boyd has said ‘we cannot win a war against water’ by building higher flood defences and called for a new approach to ensure communities are resilient to the threat of flooding posed by climate change. […]

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