Posted on 07/05/2023 5:21:37 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Maryland’s iconic Smith Island faces one of the nation’s most dire forecasts for rising seas, but real estate is booming.
... More homes have sold on Smith Island in the last three years than in the previous 11 combined, according to sales data. Locals see a story of hope. Their efforts to rescue a 400-year-old way of life tied to tide and season are beginning to bear fruit. Many question the doomsday predictions for the island or hope they can find a way to ride out rising waters.
Environmentalists see a dangerous kind of denialism. They say Smith Island’s long-term survival is doubtful, so the only rational path is retreat. They see the recent interest in the island as part of an unsettling national trend — studies show more Americans are moving into climate danger zones.
By the time Hurricane Sandy arrived in 2012, Smith Island had suffered a long decline. The population had dwindled from a peak of around 800 in the 1900s to less than 200 and an economy centered on crabs and oysters was fading. Roads were crumbling and a sewer plant failing.
Another threat was also looming: climate change.
William Sweet, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the island, which averages a couple feet above sea level, could see bay waters rise by roughly a foot by about 2050, meaning even moderate flooding could send waters sloshing across the land. By 2100, Sweet said, an additional foot of sea-level rise is expected — a scenario that could submerge most of the island.
Sweet said Smith Island’s situation is worse because it is sinking, a process caused by land settling after the last ice age, groundwater pumping and the compaction of earth stirred up by an ancient meteor strike.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This whole midAtlantic region is sinking due to subsidence and tectonic rebound. Nothing at all to do with climate. But don’t tell the idiot boys and girls at WAPO about this, they might get pouty and grumpy.
Imagine the panic if we had evolved 12,000 years earlier. How could we have possibly prevented the glacier from melting and leaving Dayton, Ohio ice free?
But it is a similar problem as islands in the Mississippi River. These were coming and going with tne annual floods and rains before people became the problem.
“studies show more Americans are moving into climate danger zones.”
IOW, people aren’t buying the BS.
I vacationed and occasionally lived near Solomons Island, Maryland at the mouth of the Patuxent River at a place called Drum Point just across from the PAX River Naval Air station from 1960 to the present. I had both physical and visual access to numerous landmarks in the area including Calvert Cliffs, the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, the Calvert Cliffs liquid gas facilities, the Cedar Point, Drum Point, and Cove Point lighthouses, and the stone bulkhead surrounding the PAX River Naval air station in an area called the targets. There has been no discernible change in sea levels or erosion for more than 60 years. A road only inches above the bay just down the road from my summer home/shack occasionally gets overwashed at peak tide during heavy winds but has been unchanged since 1960. The aforementioned wind driven high tides still lap at the cliffs causing erosion and the cliffs to collapse in random places exposing sharks teeth and the occasional megalodon tooth to be exposed. At the current rate of “sea rise” and erosion I would say there is a better chance of the megalodon returning from the dead than us dying from Globaloney warming!
Listen. It worked out just fine for NOLA, built BELOW sea level.
Oh. Wait... *SMIRK*
I live in the middle of nowhere and my ‘city’ friends and family are CONVINCED I’m going to be eaten by a bear, a wolf or a coyote. Truth is, I’m most likely to lose my life to a dairy cow, LOL!
There are risks wherever you live. Funny. None of them seems concerned about the perils and ‘ferals’ THEY face in the city!
Could meaning nothing
I’ve been to Smith Island quite a few times over the years.
The island has been getting smaller since it was originally settled in the 1600’s.
Sort of a depressing place- there are piles of junk all over - because of the difficulty and expense of removing it.
Children take a boat to school in Crisfield.
Good place to eat crabs - especially soft crabs.
These so-called scientists have zero credibility.
Seriously?
I guess they never heard of glacial isostatic rebound.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/glacial-adjustment.html
In my 60+ years memories of visits to Hatteras island, I now can feel where I am in space but the place is unrecognizable. I can’t stand among the dunes where we once camped........ they are not there.
I can’t navigate by the light house because it has been moved out of danger from the tides. The Cape point stretches off in a much longer curved existence.
I sit on the porch of the Buxton motel where the waves are breaking literally at my feet.
A visit to the camp ground is a truly erie feeling. Where you are isn’t where you were
To get to Buxton, one must first cross the new moved Oregon Inlet bridge to the Pea Island. For the years of my memory, Pea Island didn’t exist because it is really an extension of Hatteras Island.
Now days, It is very nearly an island again because the separation is prevented only by the heroic efforts of the Park service building huge dunes and constant work on the road. The Pea Island that was is certainly going to be again
<< They say Smith Island’s long-term survival is doubtful. >>
True enough. The Sun’s red giant stage should be upon us in a few billion years.
However, the Modern Warm Period is real enough to think twice over buying beach front property as a long term investment. If you see my # 26 I list a few historical sea levels that were higher during prior warm periods (in other parts of the world besides America where we had written history of life in those warm periods). If I'm right that we have 2 to 4 centuries left in the Modern Warm Period (assuming it lasts as long as the past few warm periods), will there be enough sea level rise to swallow up this island? I dunno. But I darn sure ain't gonna feel guilty driving my pickup.
What?! no mention of the Smith Island Cake?
ten layers of sweetness.
“more Americans are moving into climate danger zones”
Apparently they have not been successfully brainwashed into the Cargo Cult of “climate change”.
The mainstream media needs to double down!
;-)
In an effort to save lives, shouldn’t the government Declare the Entire Island uninhabitable and dangerous, then Red Tag every structure and evacuate all people from the island...
Also waste water discharge can eat away at islands that have reefs. But then they bury those reports and go back to Climate Change.
“ Environmentalists see a dangerous kind of denialism.”
The rest of us see perfectly well that the seas are not rising.
Takes a lot of them..cause their smaller.
” Climate change could swamp this island. Home sales are surging.”
Someone ought to call our dear, beloved ex-President and tell him to sell his mansion on Martha’s Vineyard ocean front before it’s too late.
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