Sea Level Rise Is On The Rise

Anthropocene - Sarah DeWeerdt

One prediction of where rising sea levels will end up at Cottesloe Beach, Perth Western Australia. Credit: go_greener_oz via Flickr

Global sea level is rising faster now than it was in the 1990s, according to a mammoth analysis of 26 different data sets, published last month in Geophysical Research Letters.
The study uses a ‘sea level budget’ approach, which places the mass of the oceans in the context of the entire hydrological cycle. The amount of water on Earth is constant, so the sum of changes in all forms of water—chiefly oceans, glaciers, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, terrestrial liquid water such as lakes and rivers, atmospheric water vapor, and snowpack—should be zero.
To track those changes, the researchers drew on multiple sources of data for each element of the hydrological cycle, integrating the work of various research groups and government and international initiatives spanning multiple continents. This yields a more accurate picture than any single data set, they found, because random sources of error tend to average out.
They focused on the sea level budget from January 1993 to December 2015. This is because a major impetus of the study was to correct for inaccuracies in recordings of sea level during the early- to mid-1990s. Since late 1992, researchers have been measuring sea level by satellite altimetry, a method that involves timing how long it takes a radar pulse to travel between an orbiting satellite and a beacon on the ocean surface.
At first, that beacon was an altimeter known as TOPEX A. But it was old, and its measurements were known to be off by just a hair, so it was retired in early 1999. Two recent studies have attempted to quantify the impact of this instrument glitch, but with fairly divergent results. The sea level budget approach offers a more robust, reliable methodology to do this, the researchers say.
According to their calculations, correcting for the TOPEX A inaccuracies reveals that global mean sea level rose 3.0 millimeters per year between 1993 and 2015. That’s slightly lower than generally accepted estimates of about 3.3 millimeters per year.
But finer-grained analysis reveals a more complex picture, and a disheartening one. Sea level rose 2.7 millimeters per year from 1993 to 2004. And it accelerated to 3.5 millimeters per year during 2004 to 2015—an increase of about 25 percent.
Previous studies had suggested a slowdown of sea level rise during the 2000s due to shorter-term climate cycles known as La Niña events. “Here we show that in spite of the several temporary sea level drops caused by La Niña events, the [global mean sea level] rise has increased during the last decade,” the researchers write.
The accelerated sea level rise is primarily due to increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet, they found. (And that’s before taking into account the latest dire projections about Arctic sea ice melt.)
Even without the issue of correcting for past measurement errors, the new study would represent an impressively comprehensive analysis. Yet there’s something poignant about the story of TOPEX A, a lone beacon out there riding the waves. Is it a metaphor for humanity trying to understand our collective predicament with limited powers of perception?
Or maybe the lesson is a more straightforward and practical one, about the vulnerability of our understanding when we have limited sources of data to rely on. That, in turn, implies a need for multiple monitoring efforts using a diversity of approaches.
To paraphrase an old saying: Measure twice—six times, even. You only get to save the climate system once.

Links

• New estimate of the current rate of sea level rise from a sea level budget approach
• As Rising Seas Erode Shorelines, Tasmania Shows What Can Be Lost
• How High Will Global Sea Levels Rise?
• Sea Level Rise Estimate Grows Alarmingly Higher In Latest Federal Report
• Bangladesh Struggles To Turn The Tide On Climate Change As Sea Levels Rise
• Sea Level Rise
• This Antarctic Glacier Is The Biggest Threat For Rising Sea Levels. The Race Is On To Understand It
• Global Sea Levels Are Rising Fast, So Where Does That Leave The Cities Most At Risk?
• Will Climate Change Sink The Mekong Delta?
• 10 Images Show What Coastal Cities Will Look Like After Sea Levels Rise

The Impact Of Climate Change On The Great Barrier Reef

The Economist

The corals of the reef have been bleached white for a second year in a row
THE Great Barrier Reef stretches some 2,300 km down Australia's north-east coast, covering an area the size of Italy. It is home to about 600 types of coral and 1,625 species of fish. UNESCO calls it a "site of remarkable variety and beauty". That may not last. For the second consecutive year, expanses of coral have lost the vivid colours that draw thousands of annual sightseers. Instead, they have bleached a deathly white. Worse, this year the bleaching has extended further south than in 2016. Bleachings were also reported in 1998 and 2002. But for it to happen two years running is unprecedented. Why are the corals turning white?
In the 36 years since the reef was declared a World Heritage Area, mounting stresses from human activity have left it struggling. One factor is the nutrients and pesticides flowing into the ocean from coastal farms and cities in the north-eastern state of Queensland, which have polluted its waters. But experts agree that the biggest culprit is warmer ocean temperatures linked to climate change. Corals are marine animals that get their colour and most of their food from the algae that live within them. The higher temperatures stress algae, causing the rich hues to disappear. Some marine scientists liken this to the impact of a prolonged heatwave or drought on a forest. The Climate Council, an Australian research body, says the reef's surface sea temperatures in early 2016 were the hottest since records began in 1900.
Under prolonged stress corals can expel algae, causing them to starve and die. About a fifth of the reef's corals died from the 2016 bleaching. In the northern region, where bleaching was most intense, the coral mortality figure was alarming: about two-thirds. Depending on different coral species' capacity to resist stress, and the distribution of heat patterns through waters, reefs can revive over several years. The difference this time, say experts, is that back-to-back bleaching from two successive seasons of extreme heat have given the reef no time to recover, and have lowered its corals' stress tolerance. It is too early to measure coral deaths from the 2017 bleaching, but the Climate Council predicts "high mortality rates".
Two years ago UNESCO was concerned enough about the reef's health to consider adding it to the short list of world heritage sites in danger. The Australian and Queensland state governments responded with a plan aimed at improving the local marine environment. Yet both governments simultaneously support a plan by Adani, an Indian energy company, to open one of Australia's biggest coal mines in the Queensland outback, and to ship coal to India from Abbot Point, on the Queensland coast, through the reef's waters. Critics charge that burning this fossil fuel will only boost the global warming that seems to be killing parts of the reef. Russell Reichelt, head of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, says there are signs that such happenings will become more frequent due to rising ocean temperatures: "If they do, it will change the whole character of the coral community." The reef looks set to become Australia's next environmental battleground.

Links

• Skating on thin ice: The thawing Arctic threatens an environmental catastrophe
• A thaw point: As the Arctic melts the world's weather suffers
• Climate change: The Arctic as it is known today is almost certainly gone
• No cooling: Trump's indifference to climate change has not changed China's view
• Writing the end of the world: Charting trends in apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
• Climate refugees: How Alaska is coping with global warming
• Tortoise v hare: Is China challenging the United States for global leadership?
• Sunlight over soot: India becomes more active in the fight against global warming
• Scorched earth: Donald Trump launches an attack on climate-change policy
• Lean, not green: America's proposed budget cuts will be bad for the environment

Medical Scientists Report On The Impact Climate Change Is Having On Health

The Guardian - John Abraham

A new report breaks down climate impacts on health by US region

A Russian woman wears a face mask to protect herself from acrid smoke while walking in central Moscow on August 9, 2010. Air pollution from a heatwave-fueled forest fire smog caused hundreds of extra deaths each day compared to a normal period. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images

As a climate scientist, I spend time and energy studying how fast the Earth is warming and what is causing the warming. This knowledge helps us predict what the future will look like. But, what most people are interested in is, "how will it affect me?"
Some impacts we are pretty clear about, like the impacts related to sea level rise, increased storms and heavy precipitation, and increased drought and heat waves – particularly the impacts these events have on the economy. But climate change will affect us personally as well (by personally, I mean our physical person).
In fact, climate change is already affecting personal human health around the world. This subject was the focus of a summary report just published by the Medical Society Consortium. What I really liked about this report is that it breaks down some of the key impacts by region. Unfortunately, the report is limited in scope to the USA. However, the general conclusions and trends can be illuminating for people outside the USA as well.
What was also welcome is that this report was prepared by physicians (not climate scientists) of major medical societies and the conclusions are based on the best available and current information of both the climate and health fields.
So what did they find? Perhaps most importantly they find that climate change is already affecting our health. This isn't a future problem for the next generation. It is a problem that is present and growing. They also report that some populations are more susceptible to climate change effects. Among the most vulnerable groups are children, student athletes, pregnant women, elderly, people with chronic health conditions, and the impoverished. A third key takeaway is that the problems will get much worse as climate change continues.
The study reports that if you live on the West Coast, wildfires, extreme temperatures, poorer air quality, extreme weather events, and agricultural risks are occurring. On the East Coast, you can add vector-borne diseases as a risk area. The central USA region is also similarly being affected.
As you dig deeper into the report, you learn about how these various climate-related features are affecting health. Each factor is dealt with by three questions: 1) What is happening? 2) How does it harm our health? 3) Who is being harmed?
For instance, with respect to extreme weather, the report correctly notes that the frequency and severity of some weather events such as heavy downpours, floods, droughts, and major storms are increasing. This harms our health because these events can cause direct injury and death as well as displacement. Extreme weather can also harm vital infrastructure like communication systems, homes, and reduce the availability of clean water and food. Finally, extreme weather can lead to acute outbreaks of infectious disease while at the same time reducing access to health care.
Air pollution is another example area. Climate change is affecting air quality in many ways, including increasing chemical reactions in surface air (air we breathe), increasing pollen, and leading to more forest fires. Lower air quality obviously affects people with breathing problems (such as asthma and allergies). It can prolong the pollen seasons and worsen allergy symptoms. Less obvious effects like increased humidity and more heavy rainfalls can exacerbate air-quality problems indoors through mold growth for instance.
One issue I was not aware of was the threat of climate change to nutrition. Increases in carbon dioxide actually result in a lowered nutritional value of grown food such as wheat, rice, barley, and potatoes. This occurs because plants produce less protein and more sugars/starches in a carbon rich atmosphere. Plants also are less effective at taking in essential soil minerals. This is all in addition to the threats to our food system by droughts and extreme weather. We've certainly seen very severe droughts in the USA (2011 in Oklahoma and Texas, 2012 in Midwest USA, and 2012–2016 in California) that have caused severe problems in the agricultural industries.
This report was written in an easy-to-understand manner. It is accessible and authoritative. It also gets to the issue people are most concerned about – the impact of climate change in their lives. I encourage anyone who is interested to download and read this document at the link above.

Links

• Report: Medical Alert! Climate Change Is Harming Our Health
• Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health
• Is the climate consensus 97%, 99.9%, or is plate tectonics a hoax?
• Climate contrarians want to endanger the EPA climate endangerment finding
• NY Times hired a hippie puncher to give climate obstructionists cover
• New study: global warming keeps on keeping on

Bloomberg Editors On New Climate Website: Climate Change “Is Fundamentally An Economic Story”

Salon - Media Matters Staff

Bloomberg's decision to launch website could give them a leg up over competitors
Bloomberg recently announced the creation of a new website that will provide audiences with important reporting on the economic and business implications of climate change. The move comes at a time when big businesses around the world are urging governments to take action as they increasingly recognize the reality and the risk of climate change.
On April 20, the Huffington Post reported that "Bloomberg, the titan of business and financial journalism, is adding a site devoted to climate science and the future of energy to its sprawling news empire." The website, ClimateChanged.com, will serve as "a hub for coverage of how rising global temperatures are changing the planet and moving financial markets."
Bloomberg's Sustainability Editor Eric Roston explained the decision, stating, "Climate change is fundamentally an economic story, it's an economic problem. . . . It's naturally a business story and it's naturally a concern to rationally minded executives in any sized enterprise." And Jared Sandberg, senior executive editor in Bloomberg's digital division, said, "[Climate change is] the mother of all risk. . . . If you have intelligence agencies around the world identifying climate change as one of the great, destabilizing forces, there's a massive risk to contend with for any business and any investor behind it."
The Huffington Post added that Climate Changed would give Bloomberg "a leg up" over its competitors, particularly The Wall Street Journal: "The Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper's hard-line conservativism appears to have bled over from the opinion pages to the news section. A study published in 2015 by researchers at Rutgers University, the University of Michigan and the University of Oslo found that from 2006 to 2011, the Journal's news reporting rarely mentioned threats or effects of climate change, compared with the country's other leading broadsheet newspapers."
Bloomberg's decision to launch a website dedicated to the impact of climate change on world economies and businesses is a particularly timely one. In recent months, businesses have become increasingly vocal about the need to address climate change. Big companies, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, renewable energy groups, and major American manufacturers such as General Electric are pressuring President Donald Trump to keep the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement. And after Trump took his biggest step yet towards rolling back former President Barack Obama's "environmental legacy," Buzzfeed News reported that "billion-dollar corporations" have said that "they'll keep on battling carbon pollution regardless of what the government says" because "climate change is a significant concern for their business."

Links

• Bloomberg Climate Changed
• STUDY: Newspaper Opinion Pages Feature Science Denial And Other Climate Change Misinformation
• It's Not Just The Editorial Page: Study Finds Wall Street Journal's Reporting On Climate Change Also Skewed
• Businesses pressure Trump to stay in Paris climate deal
• After Dropping The Ball During The Election, Major Networks Are Now Covering The Climate Impacts Of A Trump Administration
• Big Companies Defy Trump On Climate Change

AEMO Chief Says Clinging To Old Energy Business Models Is “Insane”

Renew Economy - Giles Parkinson

The new head of the Australian Energy Market Operators says the notion that major energy industry players can hold on to their old business models is “insane”, and has described last year’s state-wide blackout in South Australia as a “wake-up” call for all in the industry.
In a speech to the Australian Solar Council conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, and in earlier in-depth interview with RenewEconomy, Zibelman says the pace of change in the energy industry would be rapid, would focus on consumers and their use of rooftop solar and battery storage, and on demand management.

Zibelman advocates major reforms in the market, particularly in the proposed 5-minute rule, which she says would help make wind and solar “predictable”. She says it is clear that Australia will lead the world in shifting from a grid focused on centralised generation and passive consumers to one based on distributed resources and two way system.
This, she says, will require a new approach from all involved, including incumbent utilities, network operators, regulators, and AEMO itself.
“You can’t simply say that everything is changing, but I’m going to do what I have done for the last 100 years in the same way and I’m going to be successful. In some quarters that is sort of the definition of insanity,” Zibelman says.
“It’s all changing, businesses need to change and they need to think about what their role is in this new system. And that’s true for AEMO. AEMO needs to think about how things are changing and what we need to do in the market to adapt to that change. so that the markets become the platform for that enabling that innovation as opposed to a barrier.”
Key to this change was in the 5-minute rule, a push to replace the current 30-minute settlement period to 5-minutes, to match it with dispatch periods and encourage fast-acting technologies such as battery storage, and remove the ability by big generators to game the market.
“Within a 5 minute window, wind and solar are highly predictable,” Zibela says. “Being able to forecast and manage the market within a short time frame is going to allow for greater predictability and greater value of resources like storage, and the demand for the resources that have to be fast responding. That’s how we can provide a more secure grid.”
Another of her key themes is “load shifting” and using smart technology to take advantage of the fact that “we know when the sun will do down”. In past times, this focused almost uniquely on electric hot water systems, which were switched to night time to keep coal generators occupied.
Now, with fast acting technologies,smart controls and storage – both on grid level and inside homes and businesses – this can become more dynamic. And it will be critical to managing the so-called “duck curve”, when the sheer amount of solar generated during the day hollows out grid demand.
This, says Zibelman, was already starting to occur in states such as Western Australia and South Australia. “We need to look at demand itself as a resource. Traditionally, when we think about managing the power grid, it is pretty simple. we increase generation to respond to demand. We have to be smarter than this.”
Zibelman has only been in Australia and in her role for six weeks, but already her views on the changes needed to adapt rapidly to a modern grid are being described – both within her organisation, and in the broader energy industry – as a breath of fresh air.
Never before has Australia had a senior executive in the energy industry being so up-front about the possibilities, and so enthusiastic about the change that lies ahead.
Her entry could not have come at a better time for AEMO, which has been roundly criticised, by the industry, by the South Australian government, and more recently by the regulator for its actions, or lack on action, in the major blackouts and load shedding that occurred last September and earlier this year.
“I’m not lookin back and asking why, as I wasn’t here so I don’t think it’s particularly useful. What’s more important is figuring out what we need to do to move forward, and address really what our opportunitues to work the system better.”
But Zibelman does say that the “System black” event may have been wake up call that Australia needed, in the same way that Hurricane Sandy was the wake up call for New York about the vulnerability of its own energy system, and led to the ambitious “reforming the energy vision” program she led as head of the state’s regulation authority.
That program, which looked to a decentralised system, micro-grid and a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, has inspired huge change. But she says Australia can go further, because no other country had gone so far with renewables, on such a continent-wide system.
“The one thing that happened in NY was we had Cyclone Sandy. That was a huge wake up call. That’s what got the attention that there had to change.
”I’m not sure we’re not at this point right now. – given the system black, the gas prices and the awakening that Australia has had that it can’t continue the way it has. Maybe what we need to do is put a name to this, New York City did this, we created a name (REV) that people can recognize and link into. Maybe, we need a name.”

Links

• Interview: AEMO’s Zibelman says system black was “wake-up call”
• Did AEMO allow S.A. grid to fail? It’s an open question, says minister
• Regulator blames AEMO errors for South Australia blackout
• Households will be at centre of Australia’s transition to 100% renewables
• “Nuts” electricity market drives new rooftop solar boom – with side of battery storage

Companies Must Take Climate Change Litigation Risk Seriously

The Australian - Jason Betts* | Peter Briggs*

Climate change litigation is set to emerge as a significant risk for ­corporations across all sectors of the Australian economy.

This is because of the fact that momentum is gathering for regulatory investigations and shareholder class actions against com­panies that fail to properly disclose the transition costs of moving to a lower carbon economy.

The attraction of these claims to regulators and litigation funders is that they won’t face the trad­itional obstacle of “proving the science” of climate change.

They can also be brought under existing disclosure laws that are used to support the majority of regulatory investigations and shareholder class actions in respect of disclosure practices.

It is often overlooked that Australia has a history of climate change litigation — but almost always in the form of environmental impact assessment cases involving federal and state planning laws.

These cases have challenged decisions to permit major construction projects on the ground that there was a failure to properly assess the environmental and climate change impact of the projects, such as projected sea-level rises or coastal erosion.

This species of climate change litigation is limited in its effectiveness — the claims generally rely on administrative law, meaning courts cannot reassess the environmental impact of the underlying project or impose environ­mental sanctions. The main remedy is forcing the decision-maker to reconsider the approval decision, this time having more detailed regard to climate change issues.

That is a slow, case-by-case process that has not really engaged with the broader national and global debate over climate change impacts and remediation.

Similarly, while “mass tort” claims are possible, they generally also face major obstacles — not everyone has standing to sue in tort, and even when they can, establishing causation — the link between a particular defendant’s conduct and an impact on the environment — requires difficult scientific evidence.

The cases are fraught with uncertainty and expense. None of these avenues is attractive to ­pro­moters of class action litigation, nor do they raise issues within the ambit of the Australian Securities & Investments Commission or other financial regulators.

That may be about to change. Regulators around the world (including ASIC) are increasingly rec­ognising the financial impact of the “transition risks” of climate change.

What are these transition risks? Examples include the increased frequency of extreme weather events creating a greater risk that a business will lose access to key ­inputs such as water and sewerage; or the increased risk of power ­outages creating greater costs for companies that depend sig­nificantly on energy transmission.

A further risk arises from the likelihood of changes to environmental or emission regulations that could cause fossil fuels to be repriced as part of a move to a lower carbon norm, meaning the balance sheet value of proven ­deposits in the extractive industry become unrealisable at historical values.

This risk of “stranded assets” is particularly topical, given Aus­tralia’s commitment to the Paris Agreement and the impact that policies that limit global warming will have on fuel reserves ­currently sitting in Australian corporate ­balance sheets. All of these risks could be material to an Australian company’s financial position and could affect the costs and profitability of its core business.

Material risks are required to be disclosed under a variety of Australian laws; the ASX listing rules require the immediate disclosure of material risks and the ASX has recently expanded its guidance to specifically include the disclosure of “environmental and social sustainability risks”.

Most shareholder class actions filed in Australia to date (especially those supported by litigation funders) have involved allegations that a listed entity ­failed to disclose its exposure to a material risk in a timely fashion.

Often this information has involved traditional business risks affecting profit and earnings forecasts, but precisely the same principles could be applied to companies that do not consider or disclose the impact of the trans­ition risks associated with climate change.

If those risks ultimately do ­affect the company’s operations, it is easy to envisage ASIC or a class action promoter initiating an investigation into when it knew about the risk to its business and whether the risk should have been disclosed earlier.

We are seeing exactly that trend emerge in Britain and the US, with the regulators in both ­jurisdictions initiating investi­gations in the past 24 months into listed entities regarding the ­adequacy of disclosure of business risk from climate change in annual reports.

They are looking at whether the balance sheet value of proven resource reserves have been mat­erially overstated in view of likely future emission restrictions.

The focus of foreign regulators is often predictive of local trends — both regulatory and of the class action litigation risk.

The result is a heightened need for all Australian companies to examine closely their exposure to the transition risks associated with climate change and the move to a lower carbon economy and to ­ensure that all foreseeable risks are assessed and disclosed where necessary.

*Jason Betts and *Peter Briggs are partners at Herbert Smith Freehills. This article was prepared with assistance from London partner Silke Goldberg.

Links

• Class actions set to get bigger, become a greater risk for business and cover new ground in 2017, Herbert Smith Freehills predicts
• Increasing regulatory expectations heightens risk of cross border scrutiny
• Australian Labor Party Climate Change Action Plan
• 2017 review of Australian climate change policies
• Update on Australian Government's Direct Action climate change program: The Safeguard Mechanism
• Government's Innovation Statement puts renewables back on the Agenda

As Rising Seas Erode Shorelines, Tasmania Shows What Can Be Lost

New York Times - Justin Gillis

Graves on Isle of the Dead in Tasmania. The island on which the graveyard lies, part of the Port Arthur Historic Sites, is being chewed away by the sea. Credit Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

ISLE OF THE DEAD, Tasmania — Maybe the hardened convicts who carved the 19th-century gravestones dotting this tiny island were barely literate, or perhaps one of them just had a wicked sense of humor. The schoolmaster Benjamin Horne went to his repose in 1843 with this sentence chiseled above his head: “Sincerely regretted by all who knew him.”

If he ever managed to sleep peacefully beneath that pungent epitaph, Mr. Horne can rest no longer.

The very island on which he lies is being chewed away by the sea. The roots of trees that have stood for decades now dangle perilously over a fast-eroding shore. A few miles away, a seaside coal mine once worked by the convicts is under similar assault by the waves.

The ruin of the former penitentiary at Port Arthur. Built in 1843 as a flour mill and granary, it was converted in 1857 into a prison. It has become one of Australia’s premier tourist attractions. Credit Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

The ocean is rising in large part, of course, because people the world over have burned so much coal, pumping planet-warming carbon dioxide into the air. Perhaps a new stone marker ought to be planted above the eroding mine: Cause, Meet Effect.

Chris Sharples, a coastal consultant, has lately been spotting such problems all over southern Tasmania, including once-sturdy electric poles in danger of falling over as the ocean strips the land away. Under a brilliant sky, he walked the shoreline near the historic mine one recent day and pointed to a steep scarp cut by the waves, a bellwether of recent damage.

New York Times

“It’s a smoking gun for sea-level rise causing an acceleration of erosion,” he said. “And it’s coal! Mined for burning!”

Both the imperiled island cemetery and the coal mine are part of the Port Arthur Historic Sites, in the far southeastern corner of Tasmania, the Australian island state. Convict ancestry was once a badge of shame in Australia, but now it is bragged about, and Port Arthur, a 19th-century prison that received some of the most incorrigible criminals in the British Empire, has become one of the country’s premier tourist attractions.

It is also under costly siege by a rising sea, and Port Arthur is but one example of a looming global problem.

In country after country, managers of national parks and other historic sites are realizing that climate change, with its coastal flooding and erosion, rising temperatures and more intense rainstorms, represents a profound risk to the heritage they are trying to preserve.

From left, the Statue of Liberty after Hurricane Sandy; the Great Barrier Reef in Australia; and a Neolithic standing stone circle and henge in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. Credit From left, Ángel Franco/The New York Times; Greg Torda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Getty Images

Venice, home of architectural and artistic masterpieces, is under such grave threat that $6 billion worth of sea gates are being installed to protect against increased tidal flooding. Rising temperatures seem to be on the verge of wiping out large sections of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Coastal erosion threatens scores of treasured sites in Scotland, including the spectacular Neolithic ruins of the Orkney Islands. The famed statues of Easter Island are in danger.

In the United States, most of the glaciers that in the 19th century dotted what is now Glacier National Park have already melted, and the rest are expected to be gone within this century. Archaeological sites on the Alaska coast are being lost. The very symbol of America, the Statue of Liberty, cannot be considered safe: Flooding from Hurricane Sandy, made worse by a century of sea-level rise, destroyed much of the infrastructure on Liberty Island in 2012 and closed the monument to visitors for months.

Like so many other problems associated with climate change, this was a crisis foretold.

In a report in 2007, the staff of the World Heritage Convention, an arm of the United Nations that oversees listings of heritage sites, warned of the peril from human-caused climate change. It specifically pointed out the risk to coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef.

When the group wanted to update its report in 2016, the conservative government of Australia, under fierce attack at home for the perceived weakness of its climate policies, demanded that any mention of the Great Barrier Reef be stripped out of the new version. The United Nations complied, though the suppressed material quickly leaked.

Part of the Coal Mines Historic Site in Port Arthur. Erosion has begun to damage the site. Credit Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

In the very year that controversy played out, the reef suffered profound damage from high water temperatures, fulfilling the prophecy of a decade earlier. And the same sort of damage is occurring again this year, part of an unprecedented back-to-back die-off that may leave large segments of the reef in ruins.

Rising ocean temperatures and rising sea levels are two sides of a coin: Most of the excess heat trapped by human emissions of greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean, and the water expands as it warms, accounting for much of the rise in the sea over the past century. It has gone up about eight inches since 1880, which sounds small, but has been enough in some places to cause extensive erosion, forcing governments to spend billions to cope. The problem is worse in places where the land is also sinking, as in Venice and along much of the East Coast of the United States.

A sea-level benchmark, bottom right, on Isle of the Dead in Tasmania. Carved into the stone in 1841, the benchmark has been compared to modern measurements to show that the sea level in Tasmania is rising. Credit Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

Over the long term, the rise of the sea appears to be accelerating because of runaway growth in greenhouse emissions, and scientists fear much bigger effects this century, perhaps so large they could ultimately force the abandonment of entire coastlines.

Though awareness of the risk to historic sites and natural wonders is growing, the effort to tackle the problem is in its infancy. In most places, discussion and report-writing have yet to give way to concrete action. “We’re a long way from managing this issue well,” said Adam Markham, who is deputy director for climate and energy with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an American group, and who was the lead author of the most recent report on world heritage sites.

Much could be done to shore up old buildings, but that is invariably expensive — and most park services and heritage agencies are badly underfunded. Beyond money, the agencies face deep philosophical issues. How far will they ultimately be willing to go to salvage buildings or parks at risk? Should they, for instance, build sea walls that would forever alter the character of old forts or other coastal sites?

In Tasmania, the archaeology manager of the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, David Roe, wrestles with such questions. The historic site has spent $5 million reinforcing old prison buildings, which are under attack by the rising salt water in the soil and also vulnerable to wind damage. But Dr. Roe is reluctant to consider more aggressive solutions, like a sea wall that would isolate the site from the ocean that connected it to a once-mighty empire.

As he sees the matter, to build such a thing would be to undermine the cultural value that made the place worth preserving.

“We can’t retreat” from the rising sea, Dr. Roe said. “We can’t elevate. We can’t rebuild. Perhaps all we can do is manage loss.”

David Luchsinger was in charge of the Statue of Liberty for the National Park Service when Hurricane Sandy ravaged Liberty Island in 2012, and he led the team that brought the park back to life on July 4 the following year. Mr. Luchsinger, retired and living in New Hampshire, said the issue with historic sites was not just finding the money to make them more resilient, but also slowing the emissions that are putting them at risk in the first place.

“To turn a blind eye on how sea-level rise and climate change are going to affect preserving our history is just, to me, unacceptable,” he said. “That’s where we come from. That is who we are.”

Links

• A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Grew 17 Miles in the Last Two Months FEB. 7, 2017 
• Earth Sets a Temperature Record for the Third Straight Year JAN. 18, 2017
• Large Sections of Australia’s Great Reef Are Now Dead, Scientists Find MARCH 15, 2017 
• Graphic: How 2016 Became Earth’s Hottest Year on Record
• Isle of the Dead Cemetery Tour
• Visiting the Coal Mines
• Port Arthur
• Global Warming & Climate Change
• Australia scrubbed from UN climate change report after government intervention
• Back-to-back bleaching has now hit two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef
• Sea-Level Rise from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century