On N.C.’s Outer Banks, scary climate-change predictions prompt a change of forecast

Washington Post ^ | 6/24/14 | Lori Montgomery

[Impala64ssa]

NAGS HEAD, N.C. — The dangers of climate change were revealed to Willo Kelly in a government conference room in the summer of 2011. By the end of the century, state officials said, the ocean would be 39 inches higher and her home on the Outer Banks would be swamped.

The state had detailed maps to illustrate this claim and was developing a Web site where people could check by street address to see if their property was doomed. There was no talk of salvation, no plan to hold back the tide. The 39-inch forecast was “a death sentence,” Kelly said, “for ever trying to sell your house.”

So Kelly, a lobbyist for Realtors and home builders on the Outer Banks, resolved to prove the forecast wrong. And thus began one of the nation’s most notorious battles over climate change.

Coastal residents joined forces with climate skeptics to attack the science of global warming and persuade North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature to deep-six the 39-inch projection, which had been advanced under the outgoing Democratic governor. Now, the state is working on a new forecast that will look only 30 years out and therefore show the seas rising by no more than eight inches.

Environmentalists are appalled, and North Carolina has been lampooned as a hotbed of greedy developers trying to “outlaw” the rising tide. Some climate-change experts are sympathetic, however, calling the rebellion an understandable reaction to sea-level forecasts that are rapidly becoming both widely available and alarmingly precise.

[Popman]

I understand your point, but how can you even see these two "maps" in the same light to make a comparison...

One is hand drawn almost 500 years ago and the other is from space?

[huldah1776]

I looked for more recent and actual maps but got distracted.

[Does so]

Some people may not be worried, but my boyfriend’s brother-in-law sold their home in south Florida (6 feet above mean high tide) and bought near Orlando (35 feet above mean high tide). I’m debating whether to sell my cottage in Chincoteague, VA, or spend $12,000 to raise it 3 or 4 feet. Even though it is behind Assateague Island I have seen water flood the back yard during major storms, and the house floor is only 2 1/2 feet higher.

Orlando?

And have the house fall into a sinkhole?

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/officials-sinkhole-causes-building-to-collapse-tilt/21425754

[csmusaret]

The Sand Hills of NC used to be on the coast. That’s why the soil is so sandy, and why Pinehurst looks so scruffy. Must have been dinosaur farts that caused that much global warming.

[okie01]

And yes Barrier Island Investment should not be a good investment as those beaches are going to change but it’s not climate change as the above link explains how the changes occur.

It's not climate driven. It's geology driven. Barrier Islands are made of what? Sand!

Sand is subject to erosion when it is exposed to what? Waves and wind!

And where are Barrier Islands located? In the water, subject to wave action. And exposed to near-constant wind.

Barrier Islands are in motion, forming and re-forming -- constantly.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Headline from last Sunday's Press of Atlantic City: "El Nino may give area cool summer - But there are so many other factors at play scientists aren't sure" (and later "the more we learn about El Nino the more we realize every El Nino has its own particular fingerprint") - and yet they can tell us that by the end of the century the sea level is going to rise exactly 39 inches and the temperature will be whatever insane number they gave - in their more lucid moments "Climate Scientists" really do know better.....

[woofie]

Simple questions ...have sea levels risen in the past decade? past 2 decades? past 3 decades? .If it has risen, how much has it risen?

Surely these answers are out there and it can be measured

[Kackikat]

I think that is exactly what I said...taking one sentence out of context does not change what I said. I also gave a link in second post to that end.

[okie01]

Wasn't disagreeing or correcting. My objective was to reinforce.

There is no climatic factor at work here. It's geologic. And bears no relation whatsoever to "global warming".

[Kackikat]

Yes I agree with that.

[Kackikat]

I haven’t been there for a few years due to husband’s illness...is the bridge finished from Morehead City across to Beaufort? I wanted to retire there....do you love it? Traffic?

[C. Edmund Wright]

yes, bridge to Radio Island been completed for years. Beaufort is booming, many folks retiring there or more to the point, semi retiring there….as people can run their Raleigh or Charlotte or Greensboro businesses online from Beaufort.

Traffic not too bad most of time. My wife loves it. Im undecided.

[Kackikat]

This has been the longest I have stayed away....I have been down near Wilmington and Myrtle Beach but like the Beaufort area better....I’m a less is more kinda person.