SeaLevelRise.org graphic
After more than 250 years of glacial retreat in Alaska, the race continues between a rebounding landscape and the rising sea of a warmer world.
And the winner is?
At this time, the group puts Alaska’s land ahead of the sea.
“Since 1950, sea levels off Alaska’s coast have declined as much as 32 inches,” the organization reports. “Scientists know this because the sea level is measured every six minutes using equipment like satellites, floating buoys off the coast, and tidal gauges to accurately measure the local sea level as it accelerates and changes.”
Along the shores of the state’s largest cities, sea levels have almost universally fallen since the 1970s, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and future predictions as to whether they will go up or down vary hugely.
The state’s largest city now has a sea level more than an inch lower than in 1972, but that is expected to change. By how much is the big question mark.
The maximum rise could cause some flooding in areas such as Ship Creek, but Anchorage is generally well sited to deal with such climate-caused change. Downtown Anchorage is about 118 feet above sea level.
Even most low-lying areas of the city are above a four and a half foot rise. Campbell Lake is 10 feet above sea level. Westchester Lagoo is 13 feet above sea level.
Unrebounding Anchorage
Sea level rise along Anchorage’s waterfront is projected to be significantly greater than for other Alaska cities because the land beneath the state’s largest city isn’t rising as fast as that in other parts of the state.
The reasons are simple. The glaciers that squatted atop Anchorage long ago are long gone, and the geologic uplift caused by the collision of tectonic plates in the North Pacific ocean is tiny compared to that in other parts of the state.
Tectonic uplift from the Pacific Plate sliding under the Yakutat Block in the St. Elias Mountains some 350 miles south of Anchorage has been estimated to be causing the land to rise steadily upward at the rate of approximately four-tenths of an inch per year.
Yakutat sits near the middle of the St. Elias range which boasts the tallest, coastal mountains in the world, and the area’s slowly retreating glacier are not far from the community of about 600. The local chamber of commerce bills the city as “the gateway to the Hubbard Glacier” only 30 miles to the north.
The Corps’ best guess for the Yakutat sea level in 2100 is a drop of another two and a half feet.
Big decreases are also projected for other Alaska Panhandle communities even as the global waters rise. The Corps’ best-guess estimates call for drops of nearly three feet in the Capital City of Juneau and more than four feet in the historic gold-port city of Skagway to the north.
But water could come up about three and three-quarter inches by 2100 in Sitka, the old Russian port on the outer coast of Southeast Alaska, and rainy Ketchikan at the southern end of the Panhandle could see a sea-level rise of about a foot.
Regionally, sea levels in Kodiak, Seldovia and Nikiski are projected to stay the same or drop slightly by 2100 while those of Seward and Valdez would rise by somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 inches.
It’s complicated
SeaLevelRise.org – which says its goal is “to enlighten and enable elected officials to implement widespread solutions to sea-level rise” – was forced to ponder “Why is Sea Level Rise Complicated in Alaska?”
Most of the answer is in the state’s melting glaciers which add a smidgeon to global sea-level rise while at the same time adding a gob to regional land rise.
“The active tectonic deformation of the region is…considered as a possible source of the uplift,” a group of University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists observed in the definitive study of the subject. “However, this effect is a minor contribution relative to viscoelastic rebound,” or what one might simply call glacial rebound.
The Glacier Bay area is one of the fastest rising parts of Alaska. The researchers found one area that appeared to have risen almost 19 feet above sea level since 1750.
Though Alaskans living in small coastal villages built on barrier islands or along meandering 49th state rivers are facing increasing risks from climate-related flooding linked to rising sea levels or increased river flows, the SeaLevelRise website makes the problems in Alaska sound relatively minor compared to those of some other states.
“The sea level around Louisiana is up to 24 inches higher than it was in 1950,” the organization says. “This increase is mostly due to sinking land, and it’s causing major issues. New Orleans is the largest population center at risk from sea level rise in the country and is now experiencing one of the highest rates of sea-level rise in the world.”
The New Orleans Metropolitan Area is home to almost 1.3 million people. That’s only about 200,000 people shy of twice the population of the entire state of Alaska.
Coastal Louisiana has been known to be sinking for a long time due to soil compaction, human lowering of the water table, plate tectonics and more, but Louisiana scientists reporting in the journal of the Geological Society of America in 2017 identified the biggest problem as human-caused changes in the Mississippi River drainage affecting the wetlands surrounding Louisiana’s uplands.
And they don’t expect the situation to get any better in the future.
“A landmark study (Blum and Roberts, 2009) has shown that this problem is likely to worsen in the future due to limited sediment loads and accelerated sea-level rise,” they wrote.
Louisiana is sort of the opposite of Alaska. While significant parts of the 49th state are rising, large parts of the 18th state are sinking. While Alaska has coastal mountains rising to heights of thousands of feet within miles of the ocean, Louisiana’s highest point – Driskill Mountain – is but 535-feet above sea level.
Most of the city is built on land less than 10 feet above the sea.
Categories: News
Excellent write-up on the interplay between land & sea.
Netherlands with its land-reclamation, and the river-dikes (which preceded – even back to Roman times – and inspired the sea-dikes) that prevent severe inland flooding of the Low Lands when weather dumps rain on the hills & Alps to the south, are also slowly subsiding (the sea ‘rising’), partly because the young post-Glacial sediments are still settling, partly due to the river dikes, as the former flooding brought in new sediment. And this despite that some isostatic rebound is still occurring, after the continental ice sheet retreated.
The problem in New Orleans is exacerbated by river-taming upstream on the Mississippi, altering the transport of new sediment to maintain the built-up delta. Versions of this occur on many other river systems & ports.
The Yukon & Kuskokwim delta will one day be a concern, as development on both rivers advances. The Rampart Dam and Lake Flats will alter the shoreline geology, in one stroke.
It’s amazing that the earth’s crust can be deformed so much by the weight of frozen water and then spring back at the rate it does. Truly a wonder.
But we’re all going to drown! In minutes! Don’t believe me? Ask any brain-washed 16-yearold. If you can get one’s attention through the cloud of anti-depressents they’re being fed like popcorn to overcome the pain of the dark picture propagandists portray!
Great article Craig! As a native New Orleanian who has moved to higher ground, I can appreciate your description. Historically, New Orleans was always in the flood bowl. It is literally like a saucer in land depths, with the highest parts of the city near the River and the Lake. Elaborate canals and pumping systems were built long ago and are now deteriorating. Poor management of the city has worsened the flooding. Recently in 2019, flooding has occurred from simple rain storms in the heart of New Orleans. After many repeats of this “phenomenon” someone bothered to explore the large drainage ditches and found abandoned and “washed away” cars and other mega-junk traced back to Hurricane Katrina (2005) blocking the drainage ditches. Cleaning them out has helped with the rainstorms, but when the next “Katrina” comes, I suspect the city will be in peril. Our coastal erosion has made former boundaries between the land and the water disappear. Coastal Louisiana is in trouble. It is good to hear that Alaska is alive and well as regards to flooding. I have been greatly influenced by the beauty of Alaska and have an inherent love of land. So I am going to further secure my homestead by moving to 50 acres on the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain with the highest parts of my land at a whopping 183 feet above sea level. Not so high by Alaska standards, but great by South Louisiana standards. Then I plan to bring a little bit of Alaska to my homestead–a beautiful husky. Hopefully the 50 acres will be large enough to accommodate this beautiful animal. I fell in love with Alaska through my many trips there and hope to return for a visit soon. Louisiana and Alaska may be very different in topography, but we are so alike in our love of land and the many sports such as boating, fishing and hunting, There are still many who make their living from the land and the sea. My best to all of you.
i spent some time down your way during the Deepwater disaster. there are some gorgeous beaches along the Gulf coast, but damn that is some low country. i don’t see how significant parts of that area don’t face costly problems due to even a small rise in sea levels. i don’t think government can afford to dike the entire coast as the Dutch have done.
You are so right Craig. People here refuse to see the handwriting on the wall. I am moving to 50 acres on the Northshore, north of Lake Pontchartrain. People forget about Katrina and this very low area and they are building large homes in flood areas again. The coastal islands are disappearing. Grand Isle will not exist in the long term. Losing ground every day. New Orleans will never receive the money that it did to rebuild after the floods of Katrina. Much of the money disappeared and streets and drainage are deplorable. Never fixed in spite of the millions awarded to do so. No investigations. The landscape will change in the not so far away future. It is so beautiful on the coast, but I agree that the government could never afford to dike the entire coast or even parts of it.
Thanks Craig, your article clearly illustrates how the manipulation or words and facts creates a bogus, money generating, fraudulant “crisis” called “Global Warming”. Everything is in its natural order, creating its natural effects as it has for 4 billion years..
Oh, I want to add in the last few years all the UFO sightings.. Just in the last 15 years. Oh my!! Global Warming and an alien invasion. How will we ever survive the onslaught?
Medred’s article did not reveal anything fraudulent or anything remotely denying climate change by humans. It’s simple geography from high school about “rebounding”. These are and have been part of the analysis of our rising seas over the past decades. Even though terrain maybe rebounding in places, the oceans will still rise, the earth will get dramatically warmer and many will bury their head in a sandy beach full of plastics in denial of basic earth and atmospheric science.