Could global warming turn R.I. into the under-Ocean State?

NEWPORT


It is 8:16 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2100.

The highest naturally occurring tide of the year has come in, further emphasizing a distressing reality: the City by the Sea is now a city increasingly under the sea. Since the year 2009, sea levels have risen at least 3 feet. Even during regular tides, the ocean reaches in to claim more and more of the shore. Every coastal community in Rhode Island, not just Newport, has been affected.

Buildings have been lost, roads displaced, parks submerged. Wells have gone bad, polluted by encroaching salt water. Septic systems have failed. Beaches and valuable coastal wetlands have disappeared. Even moderate storms now cause unprecedented damage as waves and surges at least 3 feet higher than nine decades before pack an unprecedented punch.

This is no science-fiction scenario.

This is the most optimistic real-life projection that scientists today make for the year 2100