Global warming’s threat to SPI a concern

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Rising seas heated by global warming could rise by a foot and a half to 3 feet in the next 100 years and devastate America’s coastal communities — including the Island’s.

Yet local government and scientific community representatives are not without hope that areas like this barrier island can respond to challenges global warming poses.

As scientists and federal officials met this week in Washington to discuss global warming’s threats, an interactive online map from scientists at the University of Arizona shows how the Gulf of Mexico could swallow South Padre Island with a rise of just 3 feet.

Based on U.S. Geological Survey data, the model also illustrates the potential flooding and loss of Boca Chica Beach and areas of Port Isabel, Laguna Vista and land along the Brownsville Ship Channel between the Laguna Madre and Brownsville.

South Padre Island experienced a sudden sea rise of 3 feet in September 2005, when Hurricane Rita hit the Texas and Louisiana coasts and created swells at South Padre Island that raised the tides 3 feet, according to the National Weather Service in Brownsville.

The sea rise flooded some bayside bars and overcame dunes along the beach, flooding businesses, back yards, swimming pools, and pouring water and sand onto Gulf Boulevard.

Within a matter of hours, the seas rose and hit a peak in the middle of the night and then receded.

During that high-water period, the Island’s beach nourishment program, which had previously outpaced erosion, was set back a matter of years, said Richard Franke, the executive director of the SPI Economic Development Corporation.

The 3-foot sea level increase also flooded portions of Highway 100 north of town, leaving some football field-sized areas in the county parks that were filled with towering dunes as level as playing fields.

The University of Arizona model suggests the possibility for a similar but gradual sea level rise over the course of 100 years — giving the local community time to prepare to incremental changes.

Expressing doubt

Some officials maintain the sea level rise will not be as severe as 3 feet, though.

“The road for Highway 100 is only in some cases 4 feet above sea level and in other cases it’s probably 5 feet above mean sea level,” Franke said. “If [seas] rose 3 feet, much of the island would be covered with water unless it was elevated.

“So that doesn’t quite sound right to me — to raise the sea level 3 feet. I mean, yeah, we have some glaciers and ice caps that are melting, but they’d have to melt a hell of a lot to do that.”

Franke said the community should remain positive.

Other officials share his optimism.

“Most of the information that I’ve heard is it could be 1 to 3 feet, and I’m hearing it could be more like 1 to one and half feet over the next 100 years,” SPI City Manager Dewey Cashwell said.

While making clear he defers all debate of possible sea level increases to scientific experts, Cashwell later pointed to improvements in technology that reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and the potential for accelerated technological advancements. He trusts in technology to provide solutions to help South Padre Island, he said.

“We are certainly conscious of (global warming) today, not only because of the rising sea level but because of the other compromises in our environment from flora and fauna to air quality. These things are being affected by how we live.”

The dire predictions appear to depend on society doing nothing in response, Cashwell said.

The human factor

If the costs of preserving South Padre Island are considered worthy by people, Cashwell said, then people will adapt to the environment here.

“The beach re-nourishment efforts are just one phase of that,” Cashwell said. “I would expect that if this property is continued to be valued for the purposes it now serves, folks will find millions over the next 100 or 50 years to address the concerns that are greatest to them.”

Ingenuity, technology, changing building codes and other aspects will also help coastal communities adapt, he said.

“That said, it’s all a real crystal ball exercise to state what level the oceans will rise to.”

People have different reactions to doom-and-gloom scenarios, in part because of films like Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” that may be scientifically sound in its facts, yet still fail to present a “full spectrum of possibility,” said Charles Jackson, a research scientist at the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Texas in Austin.

“You want to tell people what answer you’re giving, why you’re giving it and where the uncertainties are,” he said. “Don’t close your ears to the science just because you think people are trying to make political gains about it. There are things to learn about how everything’s connected. Now that we’re learning how climate change can affect the environment, we want to be cautious about it.”

One thing that is not clear is whether the effects of global warming can be reversed. “It takes time to slow down the warming,” Jackson said. “You can’t remove what’s in the atmosphere. It takes time.”

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ON THE NET:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on sea level: http://tinyurl.com/2df72n

The U.S. Geological Survey on sea level rise and global warming: http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/cvi/

University of Arizona’s interactive maps on sea level rise: http://tinyurl.com/ca73h

Architecture 2030 study on one-meter sea level rise and cities: http://www.architecture2030.org/current-situation/coastal-impact.html