Scientists: Fort Myers, Naples on par with global sea level rise

Chad Gillis
The News-Press

Southwest Florida is on par with global averages when it comes to sea level rise, which is a good thing because it gives planners, government agencies and the public some time to prepare for the impacts. 

That was one point expressed by a group of scientists who gave a presentation in Estero this week. 

"Many locations on the east coast and Gulf coast of the United States have rates of rising sea level that are higher than the global average," said Astrid Caldas, a sea level expert working with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Louisiana and Virginia are way up there. They're going to have a lot of water coming to their doors."

An airboat races across Miccosukee tribal lands in the River of Grass. Sea level rise is expected to impact the Everglades and nearly all of Florida.

Caldas and others spoke in front of nearly 100 people at the South County Regional Library. 

"Hillsborough and Lee counties are actually projected to be pretty much up to pace with global sea level rise," Caldas told the crowd. "And that's a good thing. However, in 2030, the projection of sea level rise is about 5 inches."

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Caldas and others completed a report for the Unions of Concerned Scientists that shows sea level rise over time, through 2100. 

She and other researchers used tide tables and three categories of sea level rise spelled out in the National Climate Assessment to see when high tides will begin to impact more coastal areas. 

High tides in this area typically reach about 3 feet above sea levels, and adding a few inches will have an impact, Caldas said. 

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"When that same 3 feet occurs on top of 5 inches, that can be the difference between the water getting to your living room or not," she said. "It can prevent you from getting to work. It can prevent your kids from getting to school. So these are the things we need to think about."

The group wanted to see when various coastal counties would become inundated during high tide events. An inundated community is one that sees 10 percent or more of its usable land underwater 26 or more times a year. 

Caldas said the group wanted to know when sea level rise would impact infrastructure and other issues, not just when an area was going to be completely under water. 

That, she said, shows the timeline for when people will have no option but to take some type of action. 

"Parts of the coast are going to be permanently inundated at high tide and they're going to be lost because they can't be used if they're underwater at every high tide," Caldas said. "We wanted to know when high tide flooding was so bad that people would have to do something about it."

The study looked at years 2030, 2045, 2060, 2080 and 2100 using data from the National Climate Assessment and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

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Erika Spanger-Siegfried, a climate and energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said areas like Marco Island will be inundated by 2060 and that the island will be practically under water and useless by 2100. 

"It's a truly wicked problem because it's so difficult to keep this kind of water out of our streets, out of our stormwater drainage systems, out of our yards," Spanger-Siegfried said. "It's really different than protecting from storm flooding, where if you build a big enough and strong enough wall you really can dampen the storm surge, you really can create a different outcome than if that defense wasn't there. But with high tide, it can work its way around, under and in some cases over these defensive measures."

She said some coastal parks in states like Virginia have already lost land, and that park managers have, in some cases, stopped fighting sea level rise. 

Southwest Florida can ease those types of impacts if the region adopts proper planning restrictions, she said. 

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"In the near-term, we need to stop doing the things that are creating the risks today," Spanger-Siegfried said. "We're doing a lot of dumb stuff over and over again, with zoning and building in places that we shouldn't build, that's something we can do today."

Michael Savarese, a geology professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, was part of the crowd and encouraged others to stay positive in the face of sea level rise. 

"What I would recommend that you don't walk away with is a feeling of despair and horror. There's a lot of things that prevent those levels of inundation from occurring," Savarese said. "The truth is it's inevitable, regardless of what year you put on those simulations. It will eventually become that unless there's some effort to mitigate what we're doing to our planet and reverse the impacts of climate change."

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He said the climate has been changing for a long time, and that it will continue. 

"This isn't just a contemporary problem," Savarese said. "Our climate has been changing for 4.5 billions years of Earth history, and our region has experienced massive sea levels before humans even walked the planet."

Susan Glickman, with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the problems can seem overwhelming but that the future doesn't have to be a worst-case scenario. 

"We can get out in front of this problem," Glickman said. "We can deal with whats in the pipeline and we can work to make sure that it's not worse. And we'll all benefit because we're a tourism-based economy. We have to protect our beaches and we have to protect our coastline." 

Connect with this reporter: Chad Gillis on Twitter.