Sea Level Rise to Slowly Swamp Coastal Zones

Written by Brooks Baehr - bbaehr@kgmb9.com

April 22, 2008 06:35 PM

Tuesday was Earth Day in Hawaii and across the country, an observance that began 39 years ago to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the earth's environment.

Global warming is the hot environmental topic, and scientists at the University of Hawaii are providing a glimpse into what could be our future.

The polar caps and glaciers are melting, literally crumbling into the ocean. As the water is coming up the Hawaiian islands are shrinking.

Beaches all over the state are slowly eroding, slipping into the ocean as the water creeps ever higher.

"We see the area makai of this line is very vulnerable to the impacts of high sea level," Chip Fletcher said while referencing a computer generated animation in his office at the University of Hawaii.

Fletcher is chair of the U.H. Department of Geology and Geophysics. He heads a team of scientists who are mapping the impact the rising ocean will have on Hawaii.

He showed KGMB9 animation developed at U.H. It shows a "fly-by" over Waikiki and downtown Honolulu. Fletcher's team had drawn a blue line on the "fly-by" to represent the high tide mark once the ocean has risen a full meter, something fletcher expects will have happened by the end of this century.

"That (line) will be the location of high tide sea level for two or three days a month when the tides are greatest. And all the lands makai of that blue line will have an elevation below sea level," Fletcher said.

Low lying areas in the animation will not always be flooded but Fletcher believes they will be extremely vulnerable when high surf coincides with high tide. And when it rains. He explains storm drains will be backlogged with sea water so there will not be anywhere for rain water to go.

"We have a living breathing example of this taking place today in Mapunapuna by the (honolulu International) airport where the land has subsided somewhat. It's a modern laboratory of what we are going to experience in the future for the rest of our communities," Fletcher added.

The rising water may be frightening, but Fletcher told KGMB9 we still have time to manage the problem.

"We have decades over which this problem is going to worsen. And over decades we're able to adapt our development," he said.

Fletcher advocates a slow managed retreat from the coast. He said we may also have to build up land in places and pump water from low lying areas.

"It's an extremely important issue because it's our grandchildren's generation that's going to have to deal with this problem," Flatcher added.

Fletcher thinks the state should adopt a strategy of managed coastal retreat. Instead of trying to figure out how to build near the water Fletcher believes we need to slowly step away.