Experts assess impact of climate change on LI

Long Island is already seeing rising sea levels, wetter and more powerful storms and warmer temperatures from climate change, experts said, but local stakeholders remain optimistic that the damage to Mother Earth can be slowed, if not stopped.

That's the current thinking of local scholars and advocates asked to assess the impact of climate change on Long Island before Earth Day on Friday, marking the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Climate change "already is a problem and it can’t be ignored anymore,” said Kevin Reed, a climate scientist and associate professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University.

He co-authored and this month released a report that found that the 2020 North Atlantic hurricane season was one of the most active on record, causing heavy rains, strong storm surges, and high winds.

The cause, the report said, was human activities that continue to boost the amount of greenhouse gases, resulting in a growth of more than 1 degree Celsius  in the global average surface temperature in 2020 — a rate experts said is much higher than in the past. 

He said Long Islanders are seeing a triad of effects from climate change, including sea level rise, storm surge, and extreme rainfall. 

“For an Island, that can be a particularly challenging combination of hazards,” he said. “We’ve seen this with Hurricane Henri, the remnants of [Hurricane] Ida, we’ve seen this with nor'easters.” 

During the 2020 hurricane season, the report found, "human-induced climate change" increased the amount of rain produced by "observed storms" of at least tropical strength by 10%.

“The expectation is that these types of precipitation events in our region are also increasing," Reed told Newsday. “That’s something that we expect to continue in the coming decade.”

He added that research suggests that climate change can create both heat waves and times of drought as well. “The fact that our weather becomes more extreme, as the climate warms … it predicts that we can have a drought as well as extreme precipitation events.” 

Sea Level worries

Scott Mandia, professor of Earth and Space Sciences and assistant chair of the Physical Sciences Department at Suffolk County Community College, has been studying climate change since 1997. He too said sea level rise is one of the more immediate problems Long Island is facing. 

According to Climate.gov, the global mean sea level has risen about 8 to 9 inches since 1880, with about a third coming in just the last 2 1/2 decades.

About two-thirds of global sea level rise is due to meltwater from glaciers and ice sheets. In 2020, the global average sea level was 91.3 millimeters, or 3.6 inches, above the 1993 average, making it the highest annual average in the satellite record.

Mandia said the sea level rise, which is about 4 millimeters annually, is “significantly higher” on Long Island. 

“Anywhere you have inlets and rivers, those are the places that are just constantly fighting this rising ocean — you can’t win,” Mandia said. “Sea level doesn't care if you believe in it or not. It doesn’t care if you're rich or poor. … It’s coming for you no matter what you think.”

Mandia said humans have contributed to the Earth’s warming since the mid-1990s by burning coal, oil and gas on a consistent basis.

The transportation sector, the electric use of buildings and homes and the power plants on Long Island are the biggest sources of pollution in the area, according to Adrienne Esposito, executive director for the Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment.

“They provide a majority of the baseload of electricity for Long Island, so they spew out emissions,” Esposito said about the power plants.

Making a difference

But she said the average person can make a difference in reducing greenhouse gases by reducing plastic use, switching to solar and wind energy, carpooling and backyard composting.

Ashley Hunt-Martorano, co-founder of the Long Island chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby — a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change — added that other strategies include switching to electric cars, and buying low-carbon air source heat pumps, an alternative to gas and electric.

“The technology currently exists for us to be fossil-free. It’s just the political will, our elected officials need to make that choice for us to switch to alternatives,” Hunt-Martorano said. “We’re in the middle of another energy transformation.”

She said the number one thing people can do is to push to change the law. 

“We’re not going to solve climate change through individual action,” Hunt-Martorano said. She urges people to contact their elected officials to push for more climate-friendly laws.

Both Reed and Hunt-Martorano said the next few years are crucial, but noted that with advancements in technology and research, the outlook is positive. 

"I think a lot of the things we have to do to make Long Island more sustainable, will also make Long Island a more enjoyable place to be," Reed said.

Mandia also said he is optimistic about the future. 

“When I first started teaching [about climate change] maybe 10 years ago, I was far more pessimistic than I am today,” Mandia said. “We’re going in the right direction, but the problem is we’re doing it too slowly.” 

Esposito echoed his sentiments and said she was “optimistic that people can work together to solve big problems” but noted that “the adverse impacts of climate change are already here, so what we do know now will work to lessen the impact of the future, but not eliminate it.”