Keeping our Head Above Water

Rising Concern: Sea Level and the Effects of Climate Change in Puerto Rico
By Mónica Pérez Nevárez (published Aug 25, 2008 in Business Puerto Rico magazine)
[editors note: no pictures could be uploaded to this blog.]

“Hotter temperatures, sea-level rise and increased hurricane intensity threaten lives, property and livelihoods throughout the Caribbean. As ocean levels rise, the smallest, low-lying islands may disappear under the waves. As temperatures rise and storms become more severe, tourism—the life-blood of many Caribbean economies—will shrink and with it both private incomes and the public tax revenues that support education, social services, and infrastructure.”
Ramon Bueno, Cornelia Herzfeld, Elizabeth Stanton, and Frank Ackerman, The Caribbean and Climate Change: The Cost of Inaction, May 2008; a study by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the US Center Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, http://www.gdae.org/CaribbeanClimate.html

Of all the consequences of global warming that will affect island nations, the one Puerto Rico is least prepared to deal with is rising sea levels. And the island has not yet felt the oceanic encroachment as thoroughly as some other small countries have. Last year, the 1,500 inhabitants of the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea became the first environmental refugees in the world, and Tuvalu (Polynesia) sought and received an immigration accord with New Zealand in order to accommodate its 11,000 threatened inhabitants in the near future. So the world is already seeing the effects of global warming to small, low-lying islands. There are several studies that shed some light on Puerto Rico’s particular situation.

Sea Level Rise in Puerto Rico

Dr. Aurelio Mercado, UPRM Professor of Oceanography and Director of the Coastal Hazards Center relayed some eye-popping graphic renditions of what the metro and island coastlines would look like under normal (current seal level, 0m), 1 meter rise (3 feet), 2 meter rise (6 feet) and 3 meter rise (9 feet) scenarios. And remember, in low lying areas, for every vertical foot of rise, the sea takes away 100 horizontal feet of land.

Metropolitan San Juan from Piñones in the east to Vega Baja in the west under current conditions.

A three foot (1meter) rise in seal level turns Piñones into swampland, the San Juan Lagoon floods surrounding areas, the land adjacent to the Caño Martin Peña is lost, and large parts of Cataño, Toa Baja and Vega Baja are flooded.

A 6 foot (2m) rise in sea level creates an island out of Santurce, floods Luis Muñoz Marin Airport, Isla Grande Airport, the Cruise Ship docks and the Industrial/Commercial docks of Cataño and Puerto Nuevo. Most of coastal Vega Baja is below sea level, as well as great swathes of Toa Baja, Dorado and Manati.


In this island-wide graphic of a 1 meter rise, most of the coast from Luquillo to Arecibo north of the expressway will either be flooded or revert to swampland. This includes all the new hotel and residential development in Rio Grande, Loiza, Canovanas, and Carolina to the east of San Juan, and in Toa Baja, Dorado, Vega Baja, Manati, Barceloneta, and Arecibo to the west. The east coast of the island will lose low-lying areas of Fajardo, Naguabo, Ceiba and Humacao. The south coast would lose parts of Jobos Bay, Salinas, Santa Isabel, Ponce, Tallaboa Bay, Guayanilla Bay, La Parguera and Playa Sucia. The west coast would lose parts of Boqueron, Mayaguez Bay, Añasco Bay, Las Marias and Aguada.


At a 3 meter rise, most current sea-level areas of the island are under water. Viewed by some as an extreme scenario, scientists point out that if all of the polar ice melts, the rise in sea level could go much higher.
Source: Dr. Aurelio Mercado, NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center

In a recent email, Mercado explained that these graphics show only the effects of passive flooding, and that the effects of storm surges will speed up the process. He went on to write that a “6 – 7 meter rise is what would happen only if all of Greenland’s ice disappears. Notice that I don’t say “melts’ because the effect on Sea Level Rise (SLR) would be the same if it melts, or if it slides (unmelted) to the sea in the form of icebergs. If the latter, the effects would be felt much sooner than if we waited until it melts. This is called the “dynamic instability” of the Greeland inland ice sheet, and it is what experts say will decide if SLR is kept below 1 meter, or goes up to possibly several meters within a century. Further in the future, the same uncertainty holds true for the Antarctic ice sheets (which imply dozens more meters of SLR).”

Mercado continued by saying that his “ main message is that we should start seriously discussing and planning for these eventualities since the amount of people and infrastructure that will need to be relocated implies decades of work, and billions of dollars. And we need to reserve inland space to accommodate all of that. And there exists pre-historic evidence of SLR of several meters in less than a century, so history could repeat itself.”

Another issue Mercado is worried about is the at-risk coastal infrastructure such as the mega-yacht marina in San Juan Bay or the Ponce Superport. “Have they considered SLR in their planning? Should billion dollar investments, specially of public monies by the government, include SLR studies? I think they should, but I am not sure it is being done. Because the problem is that if you combine SLR with more frequent storms, then you don’t have to wait until sea level rises 1 meter before starting to feel the effects.” The question is valid for any type of coastal development, be it private or public.

“Another message I am trying to emphasize concerns the way we are “developing” our coastline. We are creating irreversible damage irrespective of whether SLR is below 1 m, or above 1 m. The way we are building is not sustainable, even though our Constitution demands it. We have not been struck by an intense hurricane since 1932, and we have become complacent. We are getting ourselves into a deep hole by “developing” this island in the absence of a study on possible SLR consequences. As the saying goes, ‘when in a hole, stop digging’. We have to stop building on the water. The same holds true when we think of earthquakes; the last big one was in 1918, and we build as if that possibility didn’t exist any more.”

We are Responsible

Unlike the smaller Pacific atoll islands, which have no cars or electricity and therefore did not perceptively contribute to global warming, Puerto Rico cannot claim such a distinction. Local EPA Director Carl Soderburg stated in his July 21, 2008 speech in the “Hybrids 101 Forum” that “Puerto Rico had the highest electrical consumption per square mile in the world, and the highest consumption of gasoline in Central America,” and since electricity on the island is based on burning fossil fuels, you can see how the island is responsible for its own contributions to climate change.


In this nighttime photograph, heat-sensitive film was used to capture the intensity of light emanating from cities. Puerto Rico outshines everything else in the Caribbean.
Source: World Atlas of the artificial night sky brightness by P. Cinzano, Dipartimento di Astronomia, Universita` di Padova, vicolo dell’Osservatorio Padova, Italy; F. Falchi , Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologia dell’Inquinamento Luminoso (ISTIL), Thiene, Italy C. D. Elvidge, Office of the Director, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303, USA, website http://www.lightpollution.it/cinzano/download/0108052.pdf

Annual Energy Consumption in Puerto Rico:
1,089,200,000 gallons of gasoline
70,000,000 barrels of petroleum
3,952,000 megawatts of electricity
Source: Puerto Rico Environmental Protection Agency

If current plans are not changed, by 2017 electrical generation in Puerto Rico will break down this way: 32% from petroleum, 33% from natural gas and 33% from coal, or 98% dependency on fossil fuels. This means that in nine years, when the majority of other countries with similar economic structures are generating electricity from autochthonous renewable sources of energy, the island will still be paying foreign suppliers billions of dollars for most of its energy supply, and continue to pollute the environment. Source: AEE Executive Director Jorge Rodríguez

Miguel Rosa, spokesperson for Misión Industrial and an expert in environmental science and environmental health who also participated in the Hybrid 101 Forum stated that “we would need a country 44 times the size of our island in order to produce all that we consume, build all the infrastructure we plan and store all the waste we generate.” In other words, Puerto Rico would need a landmass the size of the state of California to be self-sufficient under current consumption patterns. He added that as for correcting the problem, he “thought it imprudent to do nothing; in fact, it’s criminal to do nothing.”

Geologic Time Frame and What Must be Done

The next question on everyone’s lips is: So, what time frame are we talking about? Is this going to happen this year? The good news is that no, it’s not going to happen this year. There are various estimates, and some scientists say that recent projections show much more rapid deterioration in the polar icecaps than previously thought. But all projections revolve around a time frame of 30 to 100 years, within our, or our children’s, lifetimes. In truth, that is the wrong question to ask, because once certain natural forces are set in motion they cannot be undone. The problem is, unless carbon emissions are lowered quickly, we may not be able to control nature’s feedback loops that multiply the effects of global warming. Most academics agree that the world has about a ten year window of opportunity before catastrophic temperature changes become unavoidable.

Mercado adds that “…as far as SLR is concerned, models predict that even if we lowered our production of Green House Gases (GHG) right away to year 2000 levels, the oceans will keep warming up, with the consequent SLR, for a few centuries more.” In other words, the atmosphere and oceans will still not be in equilibrium even if we reduced GHG levels by 80% right now. The only thing that we can do is avoid the catastrophic effects, not avoid sea level rise altogether. We cannot undo 100 years of air pollution in ten years, but we can mitigate the consequences.

Time is Running Out

For an explanation on the importance of the ten-year window of opportunity, here are some excerpts from Why We Can’t Wait ( http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Hansen_3.pdf ) from the May 7, 2007 edition of The Nation, written by Dr. James Hansen, physicist, adjunct professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science:

“There’s a huge gap between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known about global warming by those who need to know: the public and the policy-makers. We’ve had, in the past thirty years, one degree Fahrenheit of global warming. But there’s another one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline due to gases that are already in the atmosphere. And there’s another one degree Fahrenheit in the pipeline because of the energy infrastructure now in place—for example, power plants and vehicles that we’re not going to take off the road even if we decide that we’re going to address this problem.” Estimates show that a 3 degree rise in temperature is all that is needed for the feedback loops to begin their inexorable magnification spiral.

“If we follow the path [of current CO2 emissions], even for another ten years, it guarantees that we will have dramatic climate changes that produce what I would call a different planet—one without sea ice in the Arctic; with worldwide, repeated coastal tragedies associated with storms and a continuously rising sea level; and with regional disruptions due to freshwater shortages and shifting climatic zones.”

The second question people always ask revolves around what can be done. Dr. Hansen has five recommendations for what should be implemented immediately:
• A moratorium on building any more coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2. By my estimation, that technology is probably five to ten years away. Coal fired power plants that do not capture and sequester CO2 are going to have to be bulldozed. That’s the only way we can keep CO2 from getting well into the dangerous level, because our consumption of oil and gas alone will take us close to the dangerous level.
• The only way we are going to prevent having an amount of CO2 that is far beyond the dangerous level is by gradually putting a price on emissions.
• We need energy-efficiency standards for building construction and vehicle efficiency standards. The technology to raise efficiency is readily achievable today, let’s make it compulsory.
• The fourth recommendation involves the question of ice-sheet stability. The west Antarctic ice sheet in particular is very vulnerable. If it collapses, that could yield a sea-level rise of sixteen to nineteen feet, possibly on a time scale as short as a century. This problem with the stability of ice sheets is so critical that it really should be looked at by a panel of our best scientists. Congress should ask the National Academy of Sciences to do a study on this and report its conclusions in very plain language.
• The final recommendation concerns how we have gotten into this situation in which there is a gap between what the relevant scientific community understands and what the public and policy- makers know. A fundamental premise of democracy is that the public is informed and that they’re honestly informed. There are at least two major ways in which this is not happening. One of them is that the public affairs offices of the science agencies are staffed at the headquarters level by political appointees. While the public affairs workers at the centers are professionals who feel that their job is to translate the science into words the public can understand, unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the case for the political appointees at the highest levels. Another matter is Congressional testimony. I don’t think the Framers of the Constitution expected that when a technical government employee reports to Congress, his testimony would have to be approved and edited by the White House first. But that is the way it works now. Reform of communication practices is needed if our government is to function the way our Founders intended it to work. The global warming problem has brought into focus an overall problem: the pervasive influence of special interests on the functioning of our government and on communications with the public. It seems to me that it will be difficult to solve the global warming problem until we have effective campaign finance reform, so that special interests no longer have such a big influence on policy-makers.

So besides changing your light bulbs to fluorescents, conserving energy and resources, cutting down on waste, lobbying for the creation of an efficient island-wide mass transportation grid and buying a fuel efficient car, everyone needs to get involved in the process, become part of the solution, and demand political action. A new Land Use Plan that takes into account SLR is needed. All agricultural lands should be set aside and developed exclusively for local food production. In the construction and tourism industries, standards should be set up for green building, and all new construction should have some level of LEEDS (green building) certification, including homes, hotels and office buildings. For those individuals that can afford to do so, installing passive solar or wind turbines to run home electrical needs will guarantee their household energy needs will be met. But most importantly, people should begin thinking in terms of creating a sustainable local economy, with local businesses serving local clients.

At What Cost?

The third question everyone asks, and the one that concerns Puerto Rican business most, is how much is this going to cost? Ramon Bueno, a Puerto Rican researcher and policy analyst with the Tufts University-based U.S. branch of the Stockholm Environment Institute, wrote a study on the costs of inaction with Cornelia Herzfeld, Elizabeth Stanton, and Frank Ackerman titled The Caribbean and Climate Change: The Cost of Inaction, published last May and which can be downloaded from the web here: http://www.gdae.org/CaribbeanClimate.html . The study projects differential costs for the Caribbean region in general as well as for Puerto Rico in particular.

“For just three categories—increased hurricane damages, loss of tourism revenue, and infrastructure damages, the Caribbean’s annual cost of inaction is projected to total $22 billion annually by 2050 and $46 billion by 2100. These costs represent 10 percent and 22 percent, respectively, of the current Caribbean economy.” Ramon Bueno

Bueno uses numbers in his study that depict the difference between a high-impact scenario, one in which we carry on in business-as-usual manner and do not lower carbon emissions, and a low-impact scenario, where we reduce a considerable amount of our carbon emissions within the next ten years. So, while not stating the absolute billion-dollar cost that Sea Level Rise will have on the region and in Puerto Rico, he describes how much more expensive it will be if nothing is done. Bueno’s figures counter all of the naysayers when they say that alternative sources of energy are too expensive. If they take into account the amount of money we will have to spend in the worst case scenario, it is not as expensive to take care of the problem now, before it gets out of hand.

Puerto Rico’s Costs

“In Puerto Rico, most of the population lives in or near coastal zones, and most economic activity is located there as well, including most hotels, hospitals, and electric power plants. More than half of the population lives in the San Juan metropolitan area, a coastal city that is very close to sea level. A rise of three feet in sea level would flood large parts of the city. The cost of global climate inaction for Puerto Rico is projected to reach $2.5 billion annually by 2050 and exceeds $5 billion by 2100. These costs represent nearly three percent and six percent, respectively, of Puerto Rico’s current GDP.” Ramon Bueno

Mercado points out that we must also include the costs of rebuilding the island’s drainage systems because “as sea level rises it floods the pipes and makes it almost impossible for rainwater to drain off, and since it is predicted that storms will intensify, we will have an amount of rainfall that in the past would have taken several days to fall now falling in less than a day. For example, I have a photo showing how in a city in Hawaii, on a clear day, you open the manholes and see seawater already piling up just a few feet from the street level. And I have a movie showing how a street is regularly flooded by seawater during high tide.” So seawater would invade the drain pipes, and would not allow the efficient flow of waste water to reach the sea in the case of a storm. The waste water would remain over land for a much longer period of time, increasing health concerns for the population. In computing the costs of SLR, this secondary effect must be reflected, because SLR will make all existing drainage infrastructure ineffective or unworkable.

Puerto Rico—Cost of Inaction

(Differential cost: High-Impact minus Low-Impact Scenarios in terms of dollars)
Puerto Rico Cost of Inaction ($US Billions)
2025 2050 2075 2100
Storms 0.2 0.4 0.7 1.1
Tourism 0.2 0.5 0.7 1.0
Infrastructure 0.8 1.6 2.4 3.2
Total $1.2 $2.5 $3.8 $5.2
% Current GDP 1.4% 2.8% 4.4% 6.0%
Sources: Authors’ calculations. Amounts in 2007 dollars; percentages based on 2004 GDP.

Metro San Juan

A 1 meter rise in sea level would flood the eastern half of Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport, parts of Piñones, the shores of the San Juan Lagoon and the length of the Caño Marin Peña, parts of Ocean Park, the southern shores of the Condado Lagoon, the Port of San Juan and most of Cataño. For an interactive Google map of a 1 m rise, go to http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=18.2476,-65.9811&z=8&m=1.

A 2 meter rise in sea levels would extend the San Juan Lagoon to the point of making Santurce an island, would flood two thirds of the International Airport as well as Isla Grande Airport, the industrial docks, all of Cataño and parts of Puerto Nuevo and Bayamon. Ironically, sea level rise will most directly affect Puerto Rico’s transportation infrastructure and agrarian soils, as both airports in the metro area will be flooded, as well as all the ports, and many agricultural areas. This not only affects the travel industry, but as most of the goods consumed in the island are imported, it also affects the survival of the people living on the island. Much of the best agricultural land would become unusable, limiting the possibility of growing foodstuffs on the island.

Tangible Changes

If global warming continues unchecked, money that could be used for economic development or other services will instead be diverted to recovery efforts from the impacts of climate change.

Half of the island population is concentrated in coastal areas where, according to Bueno, “much of the infrastructure may not be able to withstand significantly stronger winds, deeper incursions from more forceful ocean surges, and heavier rains. The anticipated climate changes will accelerate the erosion of coastal beaches, land and protective mangroves. Coastal houses, hotels and other buildings, along with roads and other infrastructure are vulnerable, as are those who live and work there.”

“Despite greater precipitation during storms and other peak periods, more frequent and longer droughts are expected in parts of the Caribbean in this century,” Bueno states in his study. “Negative health impacts will include greater heat stress for vulnerable populations (such as the elderly), worse sanitation conditions from limited water supplies or contaminated water from floods, and conditions that can favor the spread of water and air-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, malaria, and diarrhea. Public health systems may not be adequate to face greater demands on their service.”

Higher temperatures will also have serious consequences for marine ecosystems. Important fisheries are at risk as their coral reef habitats are stressed by warmer waters and more acidic waters as the oceans become unable to absorb all the carbon in the atmosphere. During the summer of 2005, there was record bleaching of coral reefs throughout the Caribbean. Coral reefs in the area have also been under stress from increasing human impacts and development; now climate change emerges as a major new threat. Reefs are a vital part of the island’s economy, providing fishing grounds, coastal protection, and tourism opportunities.

Tourism contributes 15% of the Caribbean region’s national income, or gross domestic product (GDP). In 2004, regional tourism was a $28 billion industry and employed 2.4 million people; in Puerto Rico that same year saw 4.9 million visitors who spent $3 billion dollars on the island (source: Puerto Rico Tourism Company). The hospitality industry, of course, is entirely dependent on the existence of attractive beaches and other natural areas, and on comfortable weather. Cruise ship voyages, a market in which the Caribbean accounts for half of the global total, are vulnerable to climate impacts. Most tourists come from colder climates—over 80% come from the United States, Canada and Europe—and more of them might vacation closer to home if northern winters become milder in future decades, or if oil prices make it financially unfeasible to travel.

Food and Fuel

Lastly, energy and food security are pressing concerns for a region that is highly susceptible to rising world prices for fuel and food. Bueno writes that “about 90% of energy used in the Caribbean is derived from crude oil, which must be imported. As temperatures rise in a region that is normally warm to begin with, those who can afford to consume more electricity for air conditioning will do so, causing greater carbon emissions and raising the demand for energy even higher.”

“Food security is also of concern due to the vulnerability and limited scale of Caribbean agriculture, already facing uncertain impacts from temperature and precipitation changes. Many islands, including Barbados, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, are highly dependent on imported food and agricultural products, and very susceptible to changes in world food prices. Such prices may spike upwards as climate change exacerbates droughts and floods in the world’s major agricultural producing regions and oil prices soar.”

Bueno concludes that “the combination of strong local climate effects, low-lying island geography, and limited economic resources with which to create buffers against the worst climatic effects, makes the Caribbean region especially vulnerable.”


A Call to Action

Recently, Al Gore challenged the American nation to wean themselves off of fossil fuels entirely within the next ten years. His call echoes a small group of local political and academic sources, and many environmental groups, that are asking for the political conviction needed to make the necessary social and economic changes. “We face so many problems today: economic, environmental, high gasoline prices, high electricity prices, loss of jobs, loss of homes or mortgages, the banking collapse. We have tried to fix these problems the old way, one at a time, and that seems to have only made things worse. There are three intractable challenges that have a common thread running through them, deeply ironic in their simplicity: dangerous overreliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three challenges: economic, environmental, and national security. We are borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that equation has to change. If we pull on that common thread hard enough, we find that we have the answer to all of them right in our hands. The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuel.” Al Gore http://www.wecansolveit.org/


The Last Word

"’To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world's scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don't act in 10 years,’ Gore said. He's right. A number of scientists warn that the world has a decade at most to reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, or risk catastrophic climate change. De-carbonizing our energy supply will require innovation, funding and sacrifice at every level of society. It will be long and arduous, and even if it works, we won't be rewarded with stirring film of a man on the moon. The spoils of this fight will be a world that will perhaps be less bad than it would have been had nothing been done.” http://permanentlyindignant.wordpress.com/category/peak-oil/

Hopefully in Puerto Rico people will heed the warning call and react in time.