We were able to spend Saturday night with friends in Kaaawa, and got up early Sunday morning for our walk at dawn. This was the view at Swanzy Beach Park, where a few hardy campers braved the blustery weather.
Despite the concerns about the effect of climate change on sea levels, we noticed that a home on a narrow lot between the highway and the ocean sold earlier this year for a reported $998,000. It’s located along a beach that has experienced substantial erosion for years, and seems a prime candidate to fall victim to rising sea levels, but that apparently didn’t deter buyers.
I suppose it would be interesting to look at sales data for oceanfront properties. I’ll have to give some thought to what to look for in these data.
Any suggestions?
Or maybe someone’s already done this?
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Maybe the owner is banking on beating Mother Nature with a sea wall?
Totally unrelated to your question, but since you and Meda get up and out at dawn, apparently every day (?) what are your bedtime hours? ?
Yup the Kahala beach-front properties are single digits above sea level. Fortunately the reef there extends pretty far out and offers considerable protection against “normal” wave action. However, if we ever have a large hurricane approach from the south with a 5 to 6 foot storm surge, the results will not be pretty. You can expect damage up to, and in some cases beyond, Kahala Ave.
The official count of tropical cyclones in 2015 was 16. Although 2016 is not over yet, if I recall correctly the count up to now was 19. As the State and County departments of emergency management are fond of saying, it is not a question of if, it is a question of when. This does not even consider Ian’s original point of the gradual nibbling away of the beach-front properties by sea level rise and beach erosion.
The UH School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology has posted a fly over video on its web site which starts at Kaena Point and goes around the island showing the projected coastal flooding and erosion expected in 85 years when a conservative estimate is that sea levels will be on average three feet higher.
But many of the areas shown as permanently flooded by 2100 will be increasingly vulnerable to disastrous flooding from storm surge and nuisance flooding from high tidal events as sea levels rise and more intense storms become more common even before they are permanently underwater.
In addition to storm surges there occasionally are tsunamis—Hilo has experienced two in the last 70 years. Of course, rising sea levels will increase the impact of both storm surges and tsunamis.
I hope that scientists and governmental agencies are identifying and documenting all the areas of Hawai`i that will be affected by rising sea levels–it is good to learn about the work of the UH School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology.
For those who are interested in this subject go to http://www.lyonassociates.com/ and watch the videos Shrinking Oahu, Vanishing Islands, Encroaching Seas and others. Lyon Associates is a engineering firm which does extensive work in the south pacific where the low coral atolls are the canary in the coal mine as far as sea level rise is concerned.
If our policy makers had an ounce of foresight, they would buy portions of these properties for the public shoreline. Instead many sit empty for overseas millionaires to come twice a year.