 
The Register Guard
http://www.registerguard.com July 13, 2000 Larry Bacon PORTLAND - Within the next couple of decades, experts say natural disasters will start pounding the coast more than ever before. And as the century winds down it will only get worse - gobbling up sections of coastline and bringing floods like man has never seen. How do you get people to care about those future issues today? That's the problem that scientists, land use officials and others tackled Wednesday during a session about global warming and rising sea levels at the international biennial Coastal Society meeting. Scientists predict that global warming and the rising seas will accelerate this century, and studies show that the Northwest will experience unprecedented erosion, drier summers that could produce water shortages, and wetter winters with potential for heavy flooding. Edward Miles, leader of a climate impacts group at the University of Washington, challenged the approximately 300 attendees to find a way to get the message out to the people who should be making preparations. "The people at whom the information is aimed are not necessarily willing to use it," said Miles, whose group recently produced a report on the expected effects of climate changes. "They don't see this as being very important." But Douglas Canning, a Washington Department of Ecology official, said he at least caught the attention of officials when he predicted a dire situation in the Olympia area. He said a combination of the rising sea level accelerated by climate change and sinking of lands in the next century would result in about four additional feet of water around a low-lying industrial and commercial area. A 100-year flood under those conditions could put about 350 acres in that region under water, he calculated, about 10 times the inundation a current 100-year flood would bring. Olympia officials have not done anything but talk about the potential problem, Canning said, but at least now they are thinking about it. "It is not being ignored," he said. Conference participants broke into small groups and tossed around ideas, such as airing the issue on The Weather Channel or asking national and local politicians - especially at election time - about their position on how to deal with climate change and sea level rise. "Maybe make a big IMAX film" portraying the destructiveness of a tsunami, said Joanne Delaney, who works at a national marine sanctuary in the Florida Keys. There were specific suggestions, such as encouraging the development of maps with lines noting potential future erosion areas and making developers assume liability for structures built seaward of those lines. Other suggestions would change land-use policy to require all coastal development proposals to take potential increased erosion into account, or would overhaul federal flood insurance rules that some say encourage development in shoreline hazard areas. But Dave Perry, a coastal planner with Oregon's Department of Land Conservation and Development, said it may be difficult to get people's attention until the crises actually begin. "The consequences need to be felt by people before they will start reacting," he said. On a worldwide basis, the sea level is expected to rise at a rate of about two millimeters a year, and some say that could accelerate as global warming progresses. James Good, a coastal hazards specialist with the Oregon State University Sea Grant program, said that Oregon is already experiencing the effects of a rising sea level, and those conditions will increase on a 150-mile section of the coast from Florence to Cannon Beach. That's because that section of coastline is sinking, he said. Measurements at Newport peg the subsidence rate at about one millimeter a year. Other parts of the coast are rising because of tectonic action. The sinking of the north-central coast coupled with the estimated two-millimeter global estimate adds up to a net annual sea level rise of three millimeters.Over 100 years, that's nearly a foot of additional water along that coastline. Factor in an El Nino, which can raise the sea levels along the coast by inches, and the potential for disasters soars. Oregon and other parts of the Northwest already have had major erosion problems during recent El Ninos. The flip side of El Ninos - La Ninas - have brought heavy rain, landslides and flooding in the Northwest in recent years.The expected Northwest climate change can be expected to exacerbate that condition in future La Nina years. "To put it in entertainment terms, what we've seen in the past have been just previews of the coming attractions," Canning said. As the century passes and erosion of dunes and bluffs occurs, an event one year might seem mild compared with one a decade later, Good said. He predicts increasing pressure for protective seawalls, which he said should be resisted because they rob the beaches of sand. "I'm an advocate of public beaches," Good said. Good, one of the co-chairs of the conference, advocates a push for increased planning for coastal erosion in Oregon. Along with that, he said, there needs to be more preparation for earthquakes and associated tsunamis that could devastate the coast. "What we really need is an all-hazards approach," he said. "What we have now is a fragmented approach." Back to Oregon state page
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