Posted on 12/07/2006 4:18:56 PM PST by decimon
CHARLESTON, S.C. - Global warming and a rise in sea levels could dramatically affect South Carolina's coast, according to scientists and environmental officials meeting at a conference in Charleston this week.
The rising ocean is "going to shave off a ton of landscape along the coast," which could drown marshes that act as buffers for storm surge, raising the likelihood of major flooding when the next hurricane hits, said Jim Morris, marine studies professor at the University of South Carolina and director of its Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences.
Morris was at the Southeast Regional Workshop on The Nation's Coasts, hosted by the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. The organization wants to help communities deal with rising sea levels associated with global warming.
The state's beach management law calls for a gradual retreat of new development from the seashore, but building pressures continue from Cherry Grove to Hilton Head Island, said Braxton Davis, a scientist with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control's coastal office.
That could be dangerous with scientists warning the ocean could extend 100 feet or more inland in the next century.
Water temperatures also are rising and that could bring additional problems to South Carolina's coastal waters.
Three summers ago, a married couple became ill from eating a toxin-polluted barracuda that had been caught off the South Carolina coast.
The poisoning is normally associated with species in more tropical Caribbean waters, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But as warm waters expand northward, tropical fish, and potentially new hazards, are following into the South Atlantic's waters, experts said.
How far has it risen already?
one or two millimeters, if memory serves...
How much (actual measurement) has the ocean risen there? I didn't see that little 'fact' anywhere in the article. Must be a minor oversight...
These people need to look on the bright side-by a home in Summerville and you'll have beach front property in thirty years.
On the other hand, imagine if the ice came back ~ South Carolina'd be 150 miles inland from the new shoreline, and all those hotels and golf courses would be ruined.
That happens where I live too. The sea comes rolling in a couple hundred feet about twice a day, then I guess the ice caps refreeze, because it rolls back out. Its a little more than every 6 hours..Weird.
oh my god it must global tideing it happens hear too
the ocean is moving the ocean is moving the ocean is moving
"A ton" is such a precise, scientific term.
Oh, I forgot. This isn't science. It's research grant fundraising.
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=121751&pubDate=12/7/2006
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's most recent estimate says the sea level in Charleston will likely rise 19 inches this century, and scientists have been predicting a decades-long cycle of more active hurricane seasons. Some scientists also believe warming seas will make hurricanes more powerful.
It's called erosion.....nothing to see here folks now move along.
Data seem to indicate ~ 2-3 mm / yr rise on the East & West Coasts. Maybe the Kennedy Compound will be washed away. ;-)
Barges off shore aways pipe sand onto the beaches so all those hotels and houses don't fall into the ocean.
Ruined my metal detecting,but I just played more golf;)
The cause is open to conjecture.
Three years ago someone became sick by a fish that someone says was caught off the SC coast. Who says so? Where is the proof? Someone at work was off today for eating sushi at a Phoenix restaurant. Proof of global warming? Don't think so.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
YUK!
Lot of usage of the word "could" in this piece of crap report.
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