[LINK] "Front Yards Turn to Wetlands in Virginia as Climate Change Takes Toll"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Heather Perlberg reports on the impact of global warming--specifically, on sea level rise--in the coastal Virginia city of Norfolk.

Amanda Armstrong schedules her life around the tides. For the past year and a half, she’s had to navigate rising waters that saturate the lawn of her red brick house in Norfolk, Virginia, and sometimes fill a puddle out front with crabs and fish.

“We call it our little aquarium,” Armstrong, 40, said from outside the home along the Lafayette River that she rents with her family, where wetlands plants have sprouted up from the frequent doses of salt water.

Climate change is beginning to take a toll on real estate in the coastal city, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Richmond, as insurance costs soar and residents resort to putting their homes on stilts or opening up space underneath for the water to flow through. While most of the U.S. is in a housing rebound, prices in Norfolk fell 2.2 percent in October, according to the Virginia Beach-based Real Estate Information Network.

The city, which averages about a flood a month, is a harbinger of life in U.S. coastal communities. By 2045, within the lifetime of a 30-year mortgage, sea levels will rise about a foot along the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern shoreline, increasing tidal flooding in places including Atlantic City, New Jersey; Ocean City, Maryland; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, according to an October report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“Even with gradual sea-level rise, some elevations can undergo very fast change in vulnerability to flooding,” said Ben Strauss, vice president for sea level and climate impact at research organization Climate Central. “What’s happening in coastal Virginia is kind of a preview of what could happen much more widely.”