The Elsmores’ basement filled with 5 feet of water, and flames billowed into the dark sky from two nearby houses that flooded and caught fire. Their neighbors’ young children had to be evacuated from their house by a bucket loader. In all, some 400 homes were swamped.
The ocean’s fury is an omnipresent threat for the growing number of people who live at its edge. But accumulating scientific evidence suggests that our warming climate could cause sea levels to rise faster than previously thought, making storm surges like the one that pummeled Scituate more dangerous.
Several lines of research now indicate that a 3-foot global rise by 2100 is a plausible scenario, though some scientists forecast a smaller rise. In other words, what was once a problem for our great great-grandchildren is one our children could confront.
And it is possible the news could be even worse in the Northeast. Studies show that changes in ocean circulation driven by warming waters could raise sea levels an additional foot or more along New England shores by the end of the century.
Already, 65 acres of prime Massachusetts coastal real estate is swallowed by the sea every year; ocean waters have crept up about a foot here in the last century. While more land will be eaten away, storm surges — abnormal rises of water during severe weather — layered on top of higher seas could push much further inland, especially in flat coastal areas of New England, and oceanside homes in places like Scituate and Gloucester will be even more vulnerable. Some scientists say that climate change may also bring fiercer and more frequent storms.
As the Scituate flood demonstrated, the region is woefully ill-equipped to hold back a rising ocean. In some places along the Bay State’s coast, concrete and boulder barriers, most more than a half-century old, protect billions of dollars worth of property. In the last five years, several sea walls have partially or entirely failed in Massachusetts, including ones in Gloucester, Marshfield, and Oak Bluffs.
