Florida's counties band together to prepare for warming's effects

Rising seas have also begun to have an impact on drinking water, as the salty ocean forces itself into underground aquifers. City planners all along the coast are now laying out plans to retreat from the contamination by drilling new wells further inland. “The point,” says Murley, “is that you can do all sorts of adaptation [to climate change] without using the term” — raising coastal roadbeds, for example, in the name of highway improvement rather than climate adaptation, even though that’s what it really is. The pumps installed by the South Florida Water Management District on some of the region’s canals to handle backups during high tide or torrential rains are another good example.

The plan approved at the recent four-county summit is full of intentional language: words like “develop,” “study,” “identify,” “adopt,” and “evaluate” pepper most of the 100 recommendations it contains. That may sound frustratingly vague in the face of what promises to be a slow-moving but Ultimately, local officials will likely have to impose restrictions on development in the most vulnerable areas.inexorable disaster — the phrase “begin immediate construction of a ten-foot sea wall to protect the entire coastline” would feel a little more definitive.

But in fact, while the effects of climate change are generally understood, the specifics — What exactly is likely to happen along this particular ten-mile stretch of coastline? How will Palm Beach’s water supplies fare if sea level goes up another foot, and how different will the situation be in Fort Lauderdale? — are still mostly unknown.

“We have some great academic and agency scientists involved in the compact,” says Murley, “and the work we’ve done collectively has convinced us that global climate models are not fine-tuned enough to tell us what Southeast Florida in particular can expect,” says Murley. “A lot of the work over the next five years,” he says, “will be in downscaling the models.” Another major focus for the near future, he says, will be on resilience — how climate change will affect the built environment. “We’re about six months into a three-year project to understand this,” says Murley.

The really tough going is likely to come after the scientists finally do come to understand the specific threats facing Southeast Florida. Ultimately, county and city officials will likely have to impose restrictions on development in the most vulnerable areas — and that could be a lot riskier politically than improving drainage canals or digging wells.

As the world warms, sea levels could easily rise three to six feet this century. But increases will vary widely by region, Michael Lemonick writes, with prevailing winds, ocean currents, and even the gravitational pull of polar ice sheets determining whether some areas will be inundated while others stay dry.

Still, the fact that officials are looking at climate adaptation at the regional rather than the purely local level, and the fact that they’ve already shown they can work together, may allow them to take actions they couldn’t easily take on their own. “The compact enjoys bipartisan support,” says Steve Adams, of the Institute for Sustainable Communities. Adams, a Florida native and a former climate and energy advisor to Governor Crist, attended the recent summit. The final panel, he says, had four elected officials, two from each party. “They referred to each other,” says Adams, “as ‘good Republicans’ and ‘good Democrats.’”

more at the link