Throughout history, man has always overcome obstacles of the natural world.  The seas have been traveled, mountains scaled, and the fruits of the earth harnessed all for the growth of mankind.  One can assume that because of the size and success of our species on the compared to others, the naturally occurring problems Mother Nature presents for the species of the Earth, (hunger, shelter, natural disasters); do not hinder the human race in the same way they used to.  But what happens when we are faced with a problem that we have created? Will our species be able to survive with the same efficiency? In the past when it comes to man made problems that has not been the case.  Think about past Wars or disasters caused by man.  The European Colonization of America caused the loss of about 35 million lives and the Second World War claimed over 70 million in just six short years (Dalgleish, 2017).  Even the most deadly natural disaster cannot compare to the quantity of human life lost, especially if the amount of time is considered.  With that in mind, what kind of consequences should we expect from a natural problem that has been accelerated due to mankind? Rising sea levels, a product of global warming, are a hybrid natural and man made problem that threatens all corners of the globe in some way.  The rise of sea levels is one of the most dynamic problems the human race has ever faced and its consequences put a massive percentage of the global population at risk.    

When global warming is discussed, the consequences that are talked about are typically mild and only reach the surface of the issue.  Hotter summers, snowless winters, and the possibility that one’s grandchildren may not share the Earth with polar bears seem to be the most tragic consequences.  Skeptics of global warming look at these repercussions and see no reason for us to change our ways or try to combat it.  In reality, “the burning of fossil fuels and other human and natural activities has released enormous amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere”, raising the temperature of the Earth’s surface and the number of climate change related problems to an unnatural level (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017).  Without considering the argument on global warming’s actual existence, skeptics also criticize the accuracy of instruments used to measure climatic events and sea levels.  Because sea levels change year to year, it is possible to find periods of time even up to a decade where the sea level seems to be dropping (Bostrom, 2015).  However, this trend is not as easily found when looking at the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) over the past 150 years.  Over the past 150 years, a clear upwards trend is visible along with a slope that increases significantly after 1950.  The other argument that members of the oppositions use to deny the rise of sea levels is the reliability of the instruments used to measure sea level rise.  Tide gauges and satellite altimeters are the two primary instruments used to measure sea level trends.  Tide gauges have to account for changes in the Earth due to naturally occurring processes at the local and global level, throwing variables into the calculations scientists and observers have to work around (Bostrum, 2015).  Scientists have identified these variables and compensate for them in their measurements as best they can while still producing accurate results.  Satellite altimeters are able to measure sea level change from orbit down to the millimeter per year with incredible accuracy (Bostrum, 2015).  An instrument with this kind of precision from orbit is an incredible feat and thus an easy target for skeptics, but the fact of the matter is that it exists and it is useful.  These two instruments produced nearly the same data and follow the same trend, making it impossible to deny their ability to measure sea levels.  After examining the opposition’s main arguments when it comes to global warming and rising sea levels, it is easy to see their stance is based on the belief that global warming does not exist which is easily proven incorrect with scientific data. 

Before discussing the consequences rising sea levels are creating, it is important to understand its dynamics.  Sea levels began increasing at a significant rate around the same time as the Industrial Revolution, when copious amounts of carbon dioxide entered the Earth’s atmosphere and began to raise Earth’s temperature (Waldman, 2017).  This rise in temperature created three factors that contributes to the overall rise in global sea level (Oppenheimer, 2015).  The first is thermal expansion, a scientific law of nature that states when water is heated it expands.  The Earth’s Oceans are no exception.  This factor alone contributes to half of the past century’s rise in sea level (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017). The second is the melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps.  Glaciers and ice caps go through a natural period of melting during the summer and gain back the ice they lost during the winter (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017).  Due to higher global average temperatures, glaciers and ice caps have experienced a greater than average summer melting period, causing more water than usual to be displaced into the ocean.  The last major factor is ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017).  When ice from these areas melts or breaks off into the ocean, the sea level rises and the average temperature in these areas rises as well, causing the process to happen more rapidly and frequently.  These factors together caused a 15-centimeter rise in mean sea level in the 20th century.  Considering these processes and others do not speed up, which is unlikely, at least an 18-centimeter rise is expected between 1990 and 2100 (Dow-Downing, 2011).  Understanding the processes of rising sea levels is necessary, but what makes this problem important is its effects not causes. 

The stability and well being of ecosystems and the environment is one of areas most affected by climate change, but it is often overlooked because of our tendency to focus on consequences relating to mankind.  Consistently warmer temperatures will cause “a general shift of ecosystems towards the poles”, and if the projected 18-centimeter rise in sea level occurs in the next century, many coastline ecosystems will be submerged completely (Dow-Downing, 2011).  This constriction inward, away from the ocean, and towards the poles, away from an increasingly hot equator, will cause ecosystems to undergo tremendous change to compensate for the new weather and refugee species.  Both plant and animal species will have to undergo unprecedented rates of migration to escape inundation and harsh climate, leaving those that can’t keep up in deep seas or harsh deserts (Dow-Downing, 2011).  The species that are able to escape will run into an immediate challenge, urban and agricultural development (Dow-Downing, 2011).  Because navigating human development for most species is difficult and dangerous, development acts as a barrier blocking species from migrating to more suitable habitats.  If animal and plant species are able to escape their old homes successfully and dodge human development, they will immediately arrive in unfamiliar land, with unfamiliar predators, and unfamiliar consistencies (Dow-Downing, 2011).  For example in North Carolina, nocturnal ghost crabs roam the beaches by moonlight; disguised from prey by their white, sand patterned bodies and sly movement.  If ghost crabs were to move inland, they would find that they are much more suited for a beach habitat than a forest.  Dirt is much harder to burrow into than sand, their typical prey would be few and far between, and sharing a forest with other nocturnal predators would mean less time hunting and more time being hunted.  Ultimately, this change of ecosystem would likely mean the extinction of ghost crabs, or at the very least death in outstanding numbers.  It is likely that this genocide would come at the hands of raccoons, foxes, squirrels, or other vermin that we as humans have regular contact with.  A boom in raccoon population may be nothing more than a nuisance to us, but it is an example of how our actions have unpredictable consequences.  However, when it comes to rising sea levels, humans face repercussions much more severe than trash strewn across the driveway five days a week. 

Since the dawn of time water has been vital to survival.  The most successful cities in history were constructed around water, or with some sufficient means of providing water to their populations.  The most enduring empires relied on bodies of water, especially oceans, to explore, profit, and expand.  All throughout history, humans have lived along side water relying on it for life.  It seems as though now the Oceans want to take back what they have given.  The survival of the human race is not jeopardized in the same way some other species are, but with almost half of the human population living less than 60 miles from the coast the losses could be ruinous (Dow-Downing, 2011).  As the strength of hurricanes increase, the 145 million people living less than one meter above sea level are in grave danger (Dow-Downing, 2011).  These two statistics are show that the majority of our population lives close enough to the coast, or water, to be affected by rising sea levels.  In 2012, Hurricane Sandy obliterated areas of the United States East Coast that had not seen a storm of that magnitude in years.  It was the second costliest hurricane in USA history prior to 2017, and the deadliest and most destructive of the 2012 season (Zend-Sun-Li, 2017).  It also came with flood levels that had previously occurred only once every 1000 years.  With sea levels rising, it’s expected that this level of flooding could occur every 20 years or less by the end of the century (Oppenheimer, 2015).  This year, Hurricane Irma became “the second Category 4 hurricane to strike the U.S. in a single season, the first time in 166 years of weather records” (“Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Climate Disruption: Let’s Talk”, 2017).  With threats like this looming, regional and urban planners have to take into account the ability of infrastructure to withstand consistent flooding and intense hurricanes.  Providing infrastructure with the features needed to withstand these conditions, especially for already existing buildings, is expensive and often a low priority.  City and state officials tend to focus on more short-term, pressing problems than long-term environmental issues.  Continuous beating by storms and encroaching seas will soon make governments wish we had solved this problem slowly and efficiently, instead of waiting until it was too late and homes and lives disappear.

One of the towns in this very state is at great risk of the consequences of rising sea levels.  Charleston, South Carolina is a coastal city with a growing population of about 750,000 (Population and Demographics, 2017).  Already, Charleston is beginning to see the effects of rising sea levels.  In October of 2015, a Category 4 Hurricane Joaquin moved up the Eastern Coast of the United States, never making landfall in Charleston but affecting the area tremendously.  Charleston International Airport recorded 11.50 inches of rainfall in one day, making it the most rain the area had seen in 77 years of the Airport’s recorded data (Riley, 2015).  The rainfall and high tides from this storm left many areas flooded and led to the closure of dozens of streets (Riley, 2015).  While this event was mild for the most part, floods of this magnitude have increased in frequency.  In the 1970s, a flood of this degree occurred twice a year whereas in the 2010s, it has been seen up to 11 times a year (Riley, 2015).  In the future, according to NOAA’s projected sea level rise of a foot a century, much of Charleston’s infrastructure is at risk.  In South Carolina, approximately 800 miles of land lie no more than four feet above the high tide line, much of this land being in the Charleston and Beaufort counties (Bowers, 2017).  Ben Strauss, a lead researcher on the Climate Central map project, predicts the value of this property, holding approximately 54,000 homes, to be roughly 24 billion (Bowers, 2017).  This four-foot tide range is well with in the grasp of a rapidly rising ocean now and will be even more so in the future.  Charleston is in danger, so much so that “about one in six homes are threatened” by rising tides, sea levels, and increased flooding (Bowers, 2017).  The City of Charleston is working on solutions but can they work fast enough?  The number one concern is obviously its inhabitants but with 24 billion dollars of property in danger, will Charleston be able to afford the infrastructure needed to protect what is preexisting?  This dilemma is not specific to just Charleston.  Cities worldwide like New Orleans, London, Singapore, and Venice were all constructed at low sea levels.  Their government officials are now responsible for building infrastructure to withstand rising tides and increased flooding, maintaining existing development, and keeping the populations within these cities safe from looming natural disasters and slow inundation.  

In areas were the effects of rising sea levels are already present, how many people need to be misplaced or killed before the rising sea level becomes an issue that takes priority?  The answer is more.  Rising sea levels are pushing people out of their homes, forcing them to become environmental refugees.  Caribbean and South Pacific are two areas most at risk of inundation.  In 1999, “two uninhabited Kiribati Islands disappeared beneath the sea”, and, “the remaining 33 islands, home to 103,000 people are likely to suffer the same fate” (Dow-Downing, 2015).  A similar situation forced the 2,000 person native population of the Carteret Islands, in Papua New Guinea to move to a neighboring island when their fruit trees, a primary source of food, were killed by an increasingly saline water supply.  After the exodus from their homeland, the Carteret natives were forced to accept that a rising ocean had slowly consumed what used to be their homeland, leaving nothing but memories (Dow-Downing, 2015).  The most tragic part about these occurrences is that the natives of these islands make almost no contribution to global warming and therefore, rising sea levels.  A majority of these people will never drive a car, cook with a gas stove, or work in a factory in their entire life, making their carbon footprint one of the smallest in the entire world.  The rest of the world’s inconsiderate production of greenhouse gases has taken the homes of these innocent natives away from them in the most tragic way, a slow submergence into the ocean.  Unless the habitats and mindset of the first world countries changes, the poor lives of those island inhabitants will continue to be disrupted. 

Rising sea levels is a problem with consequences that will increase in frequency and intensity unless something is done to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and slow the rate at which sea levels rise.  Infrastructure will have to be altered to compensate for the damage we have already done to the environment.  The statistics relating to sea level rise are alarming but often seen as long term consequences, when in reality, if the global stance does not change, we will be facing a problem that is too late to fix.  
