Thursday, August 23, 2012

Musings: Rising Tide

The Garden Island today had an article about something that many of us who live on the windward side have been noticing for months: the ocean is coming closer and closer to the road at Wailua Beach.

The sea's advancement calls into question the wisdom of Mayor Bernard Carvalho's decision to locate the Path right on the beach. It's clear, given the current conditions, that there is insufficient width to construct the Path on the sand and ensure there's still some beach left for the public.

Though one expert says the long-term trend at that beach is toward accretion, even episodic erosion could jeopardize not only the Path, but the beach itself by interfering with the natural movement of the sand.

Now's the time for the mayor and the Path people to return to the drawing board and figure out another route. While the late Bryan Baptiste thought it would be cool to ring the island with recreational cement, current events associated with global warming show that to be a foolhardy concept.

Consider the new piece in Rolling Stone about how ice is Greenland is quickly melting:

The rapid loss of ice is only the latest in a chain of events that have upended conventional understanding of how the Earth's "cryosphere" – its frozen places – behave. Taken together, the events offer new insight into how fast the world's seas are likely to rise as a result of global warming...

"When I took my first course in glaciology," [Byrd Polar Research Center scientist] JasonBox says, "conventional thought had the reaction time of the ice sheets to heating on the order of 10,000 years."

But in a series of scientific epiphanies beginning in 2002, researchers using GPS have found that melting on the ice's surface can cause large sections of the ice sheet to break free of its moorings in hours, not millennia. In 2006, scientists discovered that ice was suddenly pouring into the ocean at twice the rate previously measured, spurred by a pulse of warm ocean temperatures that undercut the glaciers from below.

What's more, the ice sheet darkens as it melts, which works to further accelerate the melting.

Box had conservatively predicted that it might take up to a decade before the surface of Greenland's ice sheet melted all at once. That it actually happened in just a few weeks only underscores how consistently cautious ice scientists have been in forecasting the threat posed by global warming. Now, however, that caution is being replaced by well-founded alarm. "Greenland is a sleeping giant that's waking," says Box. "In this new climate, the ice sheet is going to keep shrinking – the only question is how fast."

And melting ice means rising seas – seas that in all likelihood are going to rise faster than scientists have predicted and cause more severe coastal flooding  much sooner than expected. It's time to stop pouring millions into shoreline infrastructure and start moving it mauka. 

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not only the windward side! Kekaha Beach is nearly gone.

KamaKele said...

My hope is that the caps pretty much melt, throwing our planet into a real, global catastrophic crisis. In the face of that crisis we are going to unite together as one human race and finally move into the next era of our evolution. Or we'll descend into chaos, our population will severely decline, and we will digress into our more primitive past. Either way, it'll be more exciting then our current existence.

Anonymous said...

I'll bet on option B.

Option A doesn't have a chance.

Waterworld, anyone?

Anonymous said...

Joan, don't tell me you are against the bike path!

Anonymous said...

I retract my 4:45 statement.....all I could think about were the old council meetings with Shay and Mel saying that the path was a waste of money....with Glen echoing their opinions. The bike path is important for this island.....but it won't be when it is underwater...so Mayor it is time to look mauka!

Anonymous said...

Wailua isn't a beach it is a river mouth/delta that extends between the two basalt ridges to the north and south. The river and ocean own that area.
To keep the corridor open will require a hardening of the shoreline with concrete rip rap ala Japan.

To move the corridor inland is so costly, it is beyond what our present rulers can imagine much less the taxpayers who will need to pay for it. Back to horse and buggy we go...

Anonymous said...

The Bike Path is a Luxury and not a necessity, Kauai needs to enjoy the Kealia to Kapaa path for now and focus on setting our priorities up and accomplish the most detrimental areas first and foremost. The Bike Path to from Kapaa to lihue should be put on hold until we fix our problems. Common sense: Dr should attend to a patient with life threatening wounds or Dr should tend to a patient who wants breast implants. Kauai Leaders are followers that don't know how to lead and definately has the priorities of Kauai ass backwards.

Anonymous said...

Sea level is going to go up 675 feet with the passing of the dark star, AKA Nibiru, or Planet X. This will put nearly all Kauai infrastructure underwater. Check poleshifting.com time is short.

Anonymous said...

Sea level is going to go up 675 feet with the passing of the dark star, AKA Nibiru, or Planet X. This will put nearly all Kauai infrastructure underwater. Check poleshifting.com time is short.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh. The sea is rising at 2.9-3.5mm per year. And has been since 1850, when the Little Ice Age terminated and temperatures started reverting to norm. This has nothing to do with sea rise. Greenland has no NET loss of ice. Nor does the much more significant Antarctica. Glacial calving is not an indication of warming. Take a deep breath.
This likely a combination of the Pacific Decadel Oscillation and some coincidental change in wind patterns. In actuality Wailua was growing until this year.
As for Kekaha, like Aliomanu, it is very likely this destruction was caused by the State when they took out the harbor groin. Something similar happened when the harbor was first built, but Iwa intervened and saved the beach.

Anonymous said...

Lumahai also lost a lot of beach. It has happened more than once in my 30 years of watching it. This is a natural occurrence when we had so many days with very strong trade winds. That is what is occurring in Wailua. The sands shift.

Regarding the bike path, I do not understand why we do not have a bike path along side the highways. It cost a lot less, does not disturb burials and serves all who actually want to use a bike for transportation.

The argument against it is that it is dangerous. If it is so dangerous then why are using cones daily to separate opposing lanes of traffic?

Anonymous said...

"The globally-averaged temperature for July 2012 marked the fourth warmest July since record keeping began in 1880. July 2012 also marks the 36th consecutive July and 329th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average."

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

Russian wheat exports:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-23/russia-may-run-out-of-exportable-grain-surplus-in-november-1-.html

US Midwest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/midwest-water-wells-drying-up-in-drought.html?_r=1&ref=earth

Sun's zooming in. Wheat is growing thin.

Anonymous said...

Well, in typical Hawaiian form...time to overbuy rice and toilet paper!

Anonymous said...

More like bread and water.

Anonymous said...

will that highway end up like the one on Maui? HDOT are you taking notes? Plan for an inland access road, now please.

Anonymous said...

Lumahai beach changes dramatically through the seasons, changing daily. Lumahai is one of our last natural undeveloped beach, and the sand always replenishes itself . Sometimes it changes over 100 feet, but it always returns to its full size.

Anonymous said...

Explain Kuhio Highway on the west end of Hanalei Bay.

Anonymous said...

Can't afford an inland route.
Time to abandon the sinking island or hunker down in your individual valleys. There no place to drive to anyway.

Anonymous said...

Cities at Risk from
Rising Sea Levels

http://www.rrojasdatabank.info/statewc08093.3.pdf

Port cities whose assets are
most exposed to rising sea levels are located mainly in three
countries – the United States, Japan and the Netherlands –
and include New York City, Tokyo and Amsterdam. By 2070,
port cities in Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Viet Nam, and
India will have joined the ranks of cities whose assets are
most exposed. Any rise in sea levels is therefore potentially
catastrophic for millions of urban dwellers and the global
economy. Given the heavy concentration of people and
assets in port cities, the failure to develop effective adaptation
strategies risks creating not just local, but international,
consequences.