Town planners know they can’t avoid dealing with sea-level rise.
I am writing an article about how coastal Connecticut’s municipal leaders are changing the way they manage roads, emergency services, zoning, and building permits. Sea level has risen to within inches of billions of dollars’ worth of valuable property. My article will appear in Wrack Lines, the magazine of Connecticut Sea Grant, in a few weeks.
My colleague Dan Grossman has started a new website about sea level. The new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a greater rate of sea-level rise. He writes: “For the first time the panel considered the possibility that polar ice sheets will shrink not only from surface melting but also from acceleration of frozen ice streams. The panel increased its estimate of the highest sea level likely this century by about 50 percent, from no more than two feet (0.59m) in the previous report, to more three feet (0.98m).” Grossman has interviewed experts on the implications of smaller polar ice sheets.
