The Front Lines of Climate Change

I have been sitting on this story for a little while till I actually had a chance to read through the whole thing. Often times when people think of climate change they only think of the changes occurring in far away places like the Arctic, Antarctic, Alaska, or Siberia. While the most drastic changes are often seen in these areas according to this article major cities within the continental US are also experiencing the change. Norfolk, VA is experiencing major flooding in portions of the city. While some of this can be attributed to the land sinking, this is what happens when you build on a swamp, for another example of this see New Orleans, not all of the flooding can be because of that.

When Ms. Peck, now 75 and a caretaker to her husband, moved here 40 years ago, tidal flooding was an occasional hazard.

“Last month,” she said recently, “there were eight or nine days the tide was so doggone high it was difficult to drive.”

Norfolk is acting to try to limit the amount of damage that is done by the flood water. This includes raising roads 18 inches and changing storm water drainage to prevent it from backing up. While these are just temporary fixes and will not solve the overall problems associated with climate change they may limit the amount of damage to the city itself. These fixes being put into place now in Norfolk will become more and more common, as the climate continues to warm, throughout the east coast of the United States and in many other places around the world.

Interesting way to handle this

So I was just cruising the internets tonight and came across the Wikipedia article on the Virginia Aquarium and having been to this aquarium before, given it was years ago, I figured I would cruise over to their website (found here). When I got to their website I see that they are going to open a new exhibit in about 56 days. So I decided I would check what all exhibits they currently have there, you have your standard sharks, seals, and turtles (among others) then I went to the new exhibit, found here, where I read this:

The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center will unveil its spectacular $25 million renovation in 2009. Restless Planet is four immersive habitats, dozens of new exhibits and 110,000 gallons of new aquariums. The Aquarium’s original main exhibit gallery has been dramatically overhauled to represent Restless Planet, where we can see how diverse environments from Virginia’s past compare to similar environments still in existence today

Awesome I thought but they aren't really going to reference geologic time periods are they?

The Malaysian Peat Swamp, resembling Virginia during the Carboniferous period

Yes they are this is awesome and should be an interesting way to help kids see how the Earth and in particular Virginia have changed environments throughout the millions of years of earth's history.

They will have the Malaysian Peat Swamp (representing the Carboniferous), the Coastal Sahara Desert Habitat (representing the Silurian), the Red Sea Habitat (representing the rifts valleys of VA during the "Jurassic" I might lean toward Triassic since they are called the Triassic rift basins [sorry]), and the Indonesia’s Flores Island Habitat (representing the volcanic Precambrian [this might be a stretch but OK]).

Overall I hope that these end up being a good exhibit when it opens if there is anyone reading this who can get there when it opens let me know what it is like, hopefully I can get out there in the next few years but I doubt it.