What a foot of sea-level rise could mean for San Diego
Climate change is warming oceans and melting glaciers, accelerating the rise of tides and coastal flooding at a frightening pace. A recentconfirmed the United States will see another foot of sea-level rise by 2050 — as much increase as the country experienced over the entire last century.
“It’s coming, and if we don’t prepare for it, we’re going to get caught out in a few decades,” said Helen Fricker, a glaciologist studying sea-level rise at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “It’s really bad.”The report, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, found that projected sea-level rise over the next three decades will likely happen even if planetary emissions are sharply curbed in coming years.
Erosion from waves, coupled with urban runoff, chews away at San Diego’s coastal bluffs at a rate of six inches a year on average, according to local researchers. However, coastal retreat can also happen suddenly, up to 20 feet at once in some cases.Several bluff collapses in Del Mar over recent years have brought the issue into stark relief, including a major failure in 2019 over Thanksgiving weekend and then another event the following February that came within feet of the railroad ties.
“We have a problem out there right now,” said Keith Grier, principal regional planner with SANDAG. “We need to do the engineering and get the construction moving. It all comes down to funding.”Beach erosion is a major issue for San Diego’s relatively narrow band of sandy coastline. Another foot of rising seas promises to dramatically complicate efforts to preserve these iconic shores, which are a significant part of the region’s more than $19 billion annual tourist economy.
The alternative is what’s known as “managed retreat,” where homes and other structures are removed in order to maintain the shoreline. Leaders in Imperial Beach have talked about this possibility, but more affluent areas have largely sidestepped the conversation.over a plan to install jetty-like rock groins that could help slow beach erosion but prevent the natural follow of sand to the south. Expect these types of fights to get more heated as seas rise.
Some have raised concerns about the more than 3 million pounds of nuclear waste, saying the situation is ripe for catastrophe, especially as tides continue to rise.
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