Guest essay by Kip Hansen – March 22, 2021
Dr. Judith Curry has written about sea levels and New Jersey [and here], inspired by a request from the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) for an evaluation of the subject. The NJBIA is concerned because a study by a team of sea level researchers at Rutgers University has called for “draconian unsupported policies” that would “harm our economy today by addressing” legitimate concerns about climate change , Sea Level Rise and Sea Level Rise “Overreacts Flooding.” Dr. Curry’s full report is titled: “Assessing the Projected Scenarios for Sea Level Rise on the New Jersey Coast”.
The CFAN report by Dr. Curry includes this summary:
The summary conclusions of the CFAN review are:
– The sea level projections contained in the Rutgers report are much higher than those of the IPCC, which is widely recognized as the authoritative source for policy making. The sea level rise projections contained in the Rutgers report, if valued at face value, could lead to premature coastal adjustment decisions that are unnecessarily expensive and disruptive.
– Scenarios up to 2050 for sea level rise and hurricane activity should consider scenarios of the variability of the multidecadal circulation patterns of the oceans.
– Best practices for adapting to sea level rise use a framework suitable for decision making under great uncertainty. The general approach of Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways is recommended for adjusting sea level rise on the New Jersey coast.
I wrote an article here at WUWT a year ago called “Atlantic City: I’ll Meet You Tonight …” prompted by the New Jersey Governor’s ordinance saying, “New Jersey has become Aims to produce 100 percent clean energy by 2050. ”and“ New Jersey will be the first state to require home builders to consider the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels, in order to get government approval for projects receive.” The portion of that executive order on sea level rise was based on an earlier draft of the same study by researchers at Rutgers University.
My Bottom line In terms of sea level rise and building codes and restrictions for New Jersey, this was:
“New Jersey, like many of the Atlantic states, has enabled uncontrolled development of its barrier islands, especially in the past 70 years, which has put billions of dollars in infrastructure and a million lives at risk. If the “threat” of climate change is a necessary incentive to change this stupid behavior, then at least something good has come of fear of climate change. It has been a long time since this self-destructive overdevelopment was so fragile and inherently contained.volatile Environments. “
Currently, around 500,000 people live in single-family homes and one- and two-story apartment buildings (along with some high-rise condominiums) year round on New Jersey’s “barrier islands” such as the Barnegat Peninsula. These barrier islands are sandbars (or barrier bars) that have been raised by Atlantic storms over the years and are occasionally torn down and cut into smaller pieces by the same Atlantic storms, including hurricanes.
Barrier bars or beaches are exposed sandbars that may have formed during the high water level of a storm or during the high water season. They arise during periods of lower mean sea level and are built up by tumbling and wind-borne sand. This causes them to remain exposed. Barrier bars are separated from the beaches by shallow lagoons and cut off the beach from the open sea. They occur off the coast of coastal plains, except when the coasts are rocky; where the tidal fluctuation is large (more than 2 1/2 meters [8 feet]); or where there is little wave activity or sand. Barrier bars are common on low coastlines, such as off the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where they run parallel to straight beaches. They are often cut by tidal inlets and connected by underwater tidal deltas. They transform irregular coastlines into almost straight ones. [ source ]
One example is Mantoloking, which was hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Note that Mantoloking is “the second richest township in the state [New Jersey], is known for its clapboard-style homes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay. The Mantoloking Yacht Club produced Olympic champions. “Let me translate this for the readers: Mantoloking is a small town exclusive to Millionaires. The median for homes there is $ 1,305,600.00 (don’t confuse this median with a mean (average), the mean is much higher).
Hurricane Sandy, October 2012, cleanly cut the NJ Barrier Island in Mantoloking. It is interesting to note that the most common complaint about Atlantic storms is beach erosion, removing sand from beaches, making them narrow. In this case, Sandy added Mantoloking Beach.
A few things from the slide show: As early as 1985, they built a protective dune between the sea and the main road using bulldozers. By 2012, the entire strip between the motorway and the dune was filled with houses. Hurricane Sandy cut a new inlet from the Atlantic into the closed sound, but when it was rebuilt it was filled with sand again. There are currently four or five beach lots left empty. This view is current from the north. Just north of the freeway, less than a mile away, the relatively small house on 1007 Main Ave right on the beach recently sold for $ 4,500,000.
Shortly after the disaster that left these poor, unfortunate millionaires harassed by Hurricane Sandy, CNN ran a seven-minute video segment on “This Little Town Struggling”. There is no mention that these are the exclusive, mostly summery, millionaires’ homes.
It is an outstanding fact the main intersection in MantolokingThe corner of Highway 37 (which crosses the bridge and dam from the mainland) and Ocean Ave (the main street that runs north and south) is displayed on Google Earth at an elevation of minus 4 feet. Well, that may be a few feet away, but we can certainly tell from this fact that the whole city is roughly at today’s relative sea level and mean high tide, within a foot or two. With the exception of these few vacant lots on the beach, Mantoloking has been completely dismantled, with larger, more expensive houses.
Bottom line:
The Jersey Shore doesn’t have to look to the future to see an impending disaster – these communities are already threatened by today’s sea level. They have been existentially threatened by sea levels for the past 50 years. You will be only minimal more at risk in the future.
When there is enough money, all the rulebooks are thrown out the window. I don’t think New Jersey will ever really impose, or impose, restrictions on the rich and super-rich if they are passed. Only the middle class will bear the brunt of the new restrictive building codes, which will ultimately mean that only the rich and super-rich can afford to ignore today’s obvious threats to building homes on short-lived sandbanks – if their beach house is swept away, build the insurance will put it back on and in the meantime they can live in their third home in the Vermont or New Hampshire woods, or move temporarily to their home in the islands.
In the long term, there is no preservation of the New Jersey Barrier Islands or any real protection of human developments there. They are of course temporary and changeable. Nature will do with them as appears appropriate in the natural order of things.
Enforcing building codes for “hurricane-proof” homes or raising highways will only bring a temporary break from the reality that barrier islands come and go over time and nothing we humans can do will change that natural order.
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Author’s comment:
In our sailboat, as we traveled to and from the islands, we passed the backyards of many of the millionaire enclaves that populate the Atlantic barrier islands of the United States. These trips take place in early spring (north) and not too late in autumn (south). Most of the mansions were empty; it was the off-season for the rich.
In the Carolinas, we had friends who had been stranded for weeks on barrier islands cut off from the mainland by Hurricane Irene. These hardworking people had lived the sounds and worked, fished and built work boats for generations. Their lives have been largely improved by the idiocy of the rich, who here – today – tomorrow – bought pieces of sand and built houses that these ordinary people couldn’t even imagine they could afford.
Human stupidity seems to have no end. (and I’m not excluding myself … you should read my as-yet-unwritten autobiography.)
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