Ideas Emerging

On Sunday, the News & Observer ran the first story in a planned series on how global warming will change North Carolina.

This first story looks specifically at how weather is changing the Outer Banks. Residents are noticing higher tides; vacationers are discovering smaller beaches; and scientists are noticing more subtle changes:

As salt water pushes farther upriver, some rivers are widening into estuaries, tidal bodies of water where fresh and salt water mix. Freshwater swamps are changing to salt marsh.

Beaches are already losing land mass, and that is heavily documented, but the story also looks at worst case scenarios. The changes thus far are nothing compared to what might come:

Nowhere are rising sea levels more pressing than the Outer Banks, which are among the nation’s most vulnerable land forms. The low-lying barrier islands stretch from Currituck County to Carteret County, and for centuries have defined North Carolina’s coastal culture. The most dire scenarios predict collapse of the Outer Banks within a century.

Perhaps most ominously, scientists are worried about what might happen if a Katrina-sized storm were to hit our coast this summer.

– mc