If things continue the way they have, Puget Sound may be in grave danger. Polar ice caps are melting and winters are getting warmer with summers even hotter. Global warming seems no longer a theory but a reality.

    Doug Myers, Science Director for People For Puget Sound, has studied global warming and its specific effects in the Puget Sound region for the last two years. He said a major cause of global warming is carbon dioxide emissions from sources such as car exhaust and burning of fossil fuels in power plants.  What this means for the Puget Sound area are rising sea levels and wetter winters.

    “If we are unable to get carbon dioxide emissions under control, we are going to see even more sever climate shifts,” Myers said. “Some climate scientists hypothesize that weather patterns could lock certain places into perpetual drought and others into intense flooding regimens.”

    Right now the planet is experiencing effects from carbon dioxide emissions put into the atmosphere fifty years ago. Even if people all over the planet stop all carbon dioxide emissions immediately, the polar ice caps will still melt and the sea level will still rise by about three feet, Myers said.

    Here’s another way of picturing the effects of global warming: There is an oil tanker heading for shore and no way to steer it. The captain turns off all of the engines, but the tanker still has so much momentum that it ends up crashing into the shore.

A Walk on the Rising Tides
    Faith Hagenhofer, a Thurston County artist from Tenino, is one of eight artists who were selected by the City of Olympia to install an exhibition called “Rising Tides.” The exhibition was displayed August 2, 2008 and consisted of 40 tiles placed along a line that marks the position of the highest tides Olympia may experience round the year 2050 due to climate change in this area.

    Hagenhofer said she took a look at the map that projected the tide line estimated by the City of Olympia’s water department and walked its perimeter. She said she was amazed to see what parts of Olympia would soon be under water.

    “We don’t see our own hand in nature’s changes,” Hagenhofer said. “And this is sort of a way in which we can see nature’s response to what people have done.”

    The project was designed to educate citizens and hopefully would inspire other communities to get involved. Hagenhofer said she hopes to repeat this project with other communities using a larger map that shows what a drastically altered Sound will look like because of rising tides.

    Read here the City of Olympia's view on climate change.

Reducing Carbon Emissions and Planning for the Future
    Myers said the citizens of Puget Sound and the rest of the world needs to cut back carbon emissions to help the next hundred years. Climate scientists have been creating models to see possible outcomes of climate change, Myers said. One possible scenario is that Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could melt and or break off into the ocean and cause a near a catastrophic sudden sea level readjustment worldwide. Another possibility is that a warmer ocean may generate stronger hurricanes than haven’t been previously experienced by humans, Myers said.

    “CO2 emissions are linked to our observed climate in a very real way,” Myers said. “And the existing predictions are already pretty sobering.” 

For Puget Sound and the rest of the world, rising sea levels and a warmer planet will provide many challenges. Our lives as Sound citizens will be affected in ways we may not yet have imagined.

 
-Sara Edmonds