Two new reports from the federal government call for immediate action to avoid or mitigate problems in the nation’s infrastructure that could result from global warming.  Higher sea levels, intense heat and increased precipitation could threaten roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure. 

A report from an expert panel convened by the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council concludes that the greatest and most immediate threat from global warming is flooding along the coast.  Another report from a group of agencies led by the Environmental Protection Agency concurs with those warnings and also expresses concerns about the effects of encroaching saltwater on beaches, wetlands and supplies of fresh water.

The academy report noted that airports in many large coastal cities are built in tidal areas, often on fill, making them “particularly vulnerable.” In the New York metropolitan area, Newark Liberty International Airport and La Guardia Airport are especially at risk.

Another of the multiagency reports, made public on Wednesday, deals with the Gulf Coast, much of which has long suffered from inundation, not just because seas are rising but also because land in the Mississippi delta area is subsiding. Despite the region’s long history of catastrophic storm damage, most recently in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, transportation planners there have not looked “far enough into the future to adequately plan for impacts on transportation systems resulting from the natural environment and climate change,” the multiagency report says.

Action in the Gulf Coast is particularly important, the report says, because the region is home to roughly two-thirds of United States oil import facilities, handles about 40 percent of the nation’s waterborne freight by tonnage and “sits at the center of transcontinental trucking and rail routes.”

Government Reports Warn of Rising Seas (New York Times 3/12/08)

March 17, 2008