The Navy and Rising Seas (The US Military Part 2) - 255

I remember my first flight for the Military Sealift Command. We flew out in our French Puma early in the morning over the south shore of Chesapeake Bay. This bay is the United States’ largest estuary.

On the nation’s largest estuary is the world’s most extensive naval base, Norfolk. It wasn’t easy to take in its enormity. Norfolk is the home base of 75 ships, 134 aircraft, 14 piers, 11 aircraft hangars, many administrative buildings, and hundreds of civilian contractors who service the fleet.  The base is the nexus for naval operations from the North Pole down the Atlantic to the South Pole and points east. Since this would be my first military ship landing, I concentrated on doing it well, so I missed a lot I would later have the privilege of seeing close up.

In the next seven years, I had opportunities to drive around Norfolk and Hampton Roads. It was impossible to ignore how much of the area was at or near sea level. My Norfolk observations were made well before I started my climate change studies.  Sea Level Rise threatens many Navy facilities as the oceans rise. Unfortunately, despite scientific warnings, the world has yet to do much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So today, we face the cost of adapting to a warmer world and rising sea levels.

In 2017 the Union of Concerned Scientists evaluated 18 coastal bases along the eastern seaboard.  Each base's exposure to rising sea levels was calculated based on the National Climate Assessment. Since it is impossible to know the exact rise by 2100, a lower and highest assessment were made. The lower projection is 3.7 feet above 2012 levels. The highest anticipated peak by 2100 is 6.3 feet.

Given these projections, here are the critical findings for these 18 bases:  By 2050, most of the installations in this analysis will see more than 10 times the number of floods they experience today. By 2070, half of the sites could experience 520 or more flood events annually—the equivalent of more than one flood daily. By 2100, eight bases risk losing 25 percent to 50 percent or more of their land to rising seas.

Four installations—Naval Air Station Key West, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Dam Neck Annex, and Parris Island—risk losing between 75 and 95 percent of their land by the end of this century.

Flooding won’t be confined to the bases. Many surrounding communities will also face growing exposure to rising seas.

Luckily, US Navy planners do not live with blinders like many climate deniers. For example, the Harvard Business Review 2017 printed an article titled “Managing Climate Change: Lessons from the U.S. Navy,” which lauds the Navy’s efforts to stay ahead of fossil fuel caused sea level rise.

The Department of Defense is clear-eyed about the challenges climate change poses. “The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world.” The Quadrennial Defense Review, issued in 2014, states. “These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions—conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.”

The Navy knows climate change will be a continuous challenge for years. “Climate change is not a one-time bump from one equilibrium to a warmer one but, rather, a continuous, accelerating process. This creates the need to plan not for a new static world but for an increasingly dynamic one. The navy’s leaders have been working to address this reality head-on, despite resistance from politicians who continue to debate if today’s unprecedented rapid and obvious climate change is real or just part of the natural cycle of the earth. To do otherwise would compromise its ability to meet its fundamental mission: “to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas.”

I want to note again that the Navy study from which this 2017 Harvard Business Review article was written was compiled in the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review. Navy Planners continued to address the threat of climate change today as then, despite “…politicians who continue to debate the very fact of climate change”. Yet, at great risk to our future, we continue to vote for politicians who quibble about climate change. The Navy does not deny climate change, and no reputable science organization in the world denies we are experiencing unprecedented rapid climate change.

What can we glean from the US Navy? First, the US Navy knows the science of climate change, even if many of our elected officials do not. If the Navy does not use climate science to plan, it will jeopardize its mission and our security. Second, to be responsible, all government agencies (and citizens) must stand by science-based decisions even when pressured by oblivious politicians to knuckle under to denial nonsense. Third, the challenge of climate change will not end soon. It is not a one-time bump in the road. We, as well as the Navy and all our armed forces, will have to mitigate emissions and adapt to an accelerating changing climate for years to come.

This is a dynamic solvable problem. The US Navy is one of many government organizations making a difference because they enlist passionate, educated, and moral people.

We must support our military with tax money to mitigate and adapt to both a changing battlefield and a changing climate. But, more importantly, we must support our military by electing competent leaders who will support their combat and climate adaptation needs.

 References:

The Union of Concerned Scientists, “The US Military on the Front Lines of Rising Seas,” 2017

The Navy Times, “In the Crosshairs: The Navy Releases Climate Change Strategy.” May 27, 2022

The Naval Institute, “The Navies Vanguard Against Rising Sea Level,” June 2020

Harvard Business Review, “Managing Climate Change: Lessons from the US Navy, July-August 2017

Defense News, “The US Navy Increasingly Factoring Climate Change into Exercises.”  September 2022

 

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