Predicted rise in sea levels could submerge low-lying islands by 2100

Dr. Orin Pilkey of Duke University expects the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to cause sea levels to rise between 3 and 7 feet by 2100. That would force coastal barrier islands to erect seawalls or abandon their communities, he said.

Pilkey, Duke's director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, was one of the experts who on Thursday discussed how climate changes would affect coastal communities in a teleconference hosted by the Rockefeller Family Fund's Environment Program.

While some scientists believe global warming is not the result of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and is part of a natural cycle, Pilkey contends it is driven by escalating carbon dioxide emissions, which cause oceans to heat up and glaciers to melt.

A 3-foot sea level rise would put the most southern and northern tips of Hilton Head under water, along with land adjacent to Broad Creek, according to maps created by Jeremy Weiss, a senior research specialist in Geosciences at the University of Arizona. The maps also show that rising waters would swallow much of the land at the Beaufort and Jasper county line, nearly all of Fripp Island and the edges of Parris Island.

Weiss created global maps by using historic records from interglacial periods and recent trends monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey. The maps can highlight specific areas. They can also show what the land looks like now and how it would change with a sea level rise of between 3 and 21 feet.

"When we get up to 3 feet, the cities will be in trouble - Boston, Washington, D.C., New York, Newark, and particularly Miami, which (are) at very low elevations," Pilkey said.

"When the cities are in trouble, it's very likely that federal money of any kind will go to the cities and the barrier island, recreational properties will have difficulty. It's going to be up to individual towns to respond ... ."

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