Sea Level Rise: No, Al Gore Didn't Invent It, It isn't A Hoax, And Now We Can Visualize It

Thank goodness, the water has gone down. This morning the water level at Oriental is a bit more than 10 inches above normal.

If you want to visualize what will be the normal water level in twenty-five years, just go down to Hodges Street at Town Dock 1 and take a look. If you want to know what the normal water level will be by the end of the century, we saw that here in Oriental last week when the water level reached its peak. That is the future normal.

Four years ago, our state legislature passed a law prohibiting sea level rise. More importantly, they prohibited government agencies at any level from planning for a sea level rise of more than 19 inches. Bad idea.

Last year, a draft state government study of projected sea level rise for the next thirty years was published. It has smaller numbers than the earlier study projecting sea level rise by the end of the century. But for government planning, thirty years is a very short time frame.