Whitehouse, experts warn of local climate change effects
Source: Providence Business News
August 21, 2008
NARRAGANSETT - U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and a panel of top scientists warned today that climate change will have a dramatic impact on Rhode Island's ecosystem over the next few decades, with far-reaching implications for the state's habitat and economy.
"Global warming is the most serious threat our environment faces today," Whitehouse told a sizable crowd in the Corless Auditorium on the University of Rhode Island's Bay Campus. "And while it will take a global effort to truly solve this crisis, we must begin to take action here at home if we intend to leave to our children and grandchildren an earth as beautiful as the one we inherited from our parents and grandparents."
The comments came at a field hearing today of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chaired by Whitehouse, a freshman Democrat elected in 2006 who is a junior member of the committee. Congress is currently in recess, and Whitehouse was the only lawmaker who attended the field hearing.
The experts who testified focused on the impact of climate change on Narragansett Bay, which "is already seeing the effects of climate change," according to Kate Moran, a professor of oceanography and ocean engineering at URI.
As evidence, Moran noted that the bay's temperature has increased by approximately 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit in each decade over the last 50 years. She said URI scientists have attributed the increase to human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Grover Fugate, executive director of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), said his agency estimates that Rhode Island's sea level will rise by three to five feet by the end of this century. Jon C. Boothroyd, the state geologist for the R.I. Geographical Survey, said climate change will accelerate the rise in sea level.
"The problem would be that [the] setback distances from the waterline now mandated by the CRMC for infrastructure placement would become inadequate to allow for a freely migrating shoreline," Boothroyd said.
The sea level rise also will cause hurricanes to become more damaging. If sea level rises by three feet, a hurricane the size of Hurricane Carol, which hit back in 1954, would now cause a storm surge equal to the Great September Hurricane of 1938, Boothroyd said.
The CRMC and the State Building Commissioner are now in the final stages of developing a high water mark standard and accompanying regulations to address sea level rise, which will be released this fall.
The agency is also in the beginning phases of creating a Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), or water zoning regulations, for the state's coastal waters. The Ocean SAMP, as the new set of rules is called, also will lay the groundwork for construction of an offshore wind farm, a top priority of Gov. Donald L. Carcieri.