Do You Know How Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Will Impact YOU?

As a surfer, I often think about how my local surf spots—as well as the world’s most famous surf breaks—may change completely in the future due to sea level rise. Last week, though, as I got out of the water at Surfer’s Point in Ventura, CA, climate change was the last thing on my mind—until I saw my first SLAP stick.

A SLAP stick on the Boardwalk

SLAP stands for the Sea Level Awareness Project, and it is one of a number of initiatives from the group Kids versus Global Warming, founded by 15 year old Alec Loorv. Alec and volunteers constructed and installed SLAP sticks all along Ventura’s Boardwalk back in 2008 to mark the point to which sea level is expected to rise with climate change. Alec and SLAP used projections for sea level rise (SLR) of 23 feet. There’s a lot of information out there about SLR, so I wanted to clarify some facts.

23 feet of sea-level rise may seem like a lot—it is. It is one of the “worse case” scenarios, and the projections you most often hear about, including the “official line” of the IPCC, is that the sea-level will rise 7.2 to 23.6 inches by 2100.  2 feet may seem manageable, but its not the whole story.

In 2007, when the IPCC worked towards consensus on its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), scientists were not able to reach consensus around the issue of melting ice-sheets.  Though AR4 discusses the likelihood of ice-melt, because of the lack of consensus, numbers associated with melting ice sheets were not factored into projections of sea level rise. The number Alec’s SLAP sticks use, 23 feet of sea level rise represents the SLR predicted if the already melting ice-sheet that covers most of Greenland, which contains 8% of the world’s fresh water resources, melts completely. Melting of the West Antarctica ice-sheet could add another 17-20 feet (See the US EPA’s website for some additional information).

A SLAP stick up close

There are other ice sheets in East Antarctica and glaciers all over the world, and the continued melting of these ice sheets will further add to sea level rise as temperatures continue to increase. Scientists continue to debate how high the sea-level will actually rise, and work on the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, due out in 2014, is already underway, with many hoping that the issues of sea level rise and ice melt will be more completely addressed.

Regardless of the exact level expected of sea-level rise, the SLAP sticks don’t just raise awareness about climate change impacts locally, however. They are also filled with information to educate the community about ways to reduce your carbon footprint and how to get more involved in other local efforts to be green. Alec’s group is hoping to install many more SLAP sticks in the future, with hopes to cover the coasts of California, New York, and nearby to Washington, D.C. The organization I work for, Paso Pacifico (discussed in Neil’s earlier post: Nicaragua’s Land, Trees, and People), is hoping to work with Alec to install SLAP sticks in coastal Nicaragua. If you are interested in getting more involved in Alec’s project, you can email him.

With many climate change impacts not expected for years into the future, I’m sure sea-level rise is the last thing on most people’s minds.  But as Scott reflected on in an earlier post, A Drive Through Water, Weather, Erosion in Southern California, it is important to start thinking about these things.

Malibu beach houses ON the water

Just the other day, when I was hanging out at a friend’s Malibu beach house, I realized that it was only a few steps away from the water at high tide. I wondered how soon it might get washed away due to rising sea levels. Or even how soon home  insurance firms will stop offering insurance to these multi-million dollar homes. Last year, State Farm threatened to stop offering home insurance in Florida, claiming that it was too difficult to turn a profit in the hurricane-prone state. Though State Farm was ultimately convinced to stay by state insurance regulators, as climate change increases the severity and frequency of hurricanes and other such extreme storm events, I would imagine that insurance firms will begin trying harder to maintain their shrinking profit margins.

I was excited to see the Sea Level Awareness project educating beachgoers in Ventura , even though envisioning Ventura’s boardwalk underwater was incredibly depressing. Perhaps if more of us understand, and understand better, how climate change will impact each of our daily lives, experiencing a little bit of that depression I felt the other day, each of us will try a little harder to reduce our own carbon footprints.

The Malibu waterfront