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New data released last week on the dire impacts of climate change may not have gotten a lot of attention in Maine because many of the state’s residents were literally busy dealing with the increasingly dire impacts of rising sea levels and rising temperatures.
The data from Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union’s climate and weather monitoring agency, confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record. More concerning, the agency’s scientists warned that high temperatures put the world perilously close to a tipping point beyond which many parts of the world could become uninhabitable.
While scientists were warning about dangerous consequences of climate change, many Mainers were living it.
A storm last Sunday brought snow across the state. Then, on Wednesday, a wind and rain storm was coupled with an extremely high tide. Homes, restaurants and other buildings were flooded with seawater. Docks were destroyed. Roads were flooded.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much of the waterfront compromised and destroyed,” Stonington Town Manager Kathleen Billings told the Bangor Daily News on Thursday. “That storm was wicked. Worst I’ve ever seen.”
For many coastal residents, a storm on Saturday, again coupled with an astronomical high tide, was even worse. Portland recorded its highest tide ever, breaking a record set in 1978.
The damage was extensive and widespread. Homes were destroyed and badly damaged in communities from York to Washington counties. Docks and piers were damaged and some were washed away, harming the state’s fishing industry. A fishing vessel ran aground forcing a rescue of its crew. Businesses and homes were flooded.
Debris littered streets, yards, parking lots, state parks and beaches. Interstate exits were closed in Portland.
Historic landmarks were damaged, and three iconic fishing shacks in South Portland were washed away around Saturday’s high tide.
“It’s just absolute carnage,” Paul Plummer, the harbormaster in the midcoast town of Harpswell, told the BDN. “It’s going to be devastating to so many: not just residents and their recreational gear, but these commercial folks just took a beating.”
Dustin Delano, a lobsterman and the chief operating officer for the New England Fishermen Stewardship Association, told the BDN on Monday that the damage to some lobstermen’s gear was so severe he doesn’t know if all of them will recover. While boats and some wharfs can be insured, other gear, like traps, typically can’t.
“I don’t really know where we go from here,” Delano said. “But I think the fishing community is a little bit in limbo right now.”
Scientists warn that these types of events will become more commonplace as the world continues to warm, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels.
The unprecedented warming last year was caused by climate change, the scientists said, although it was exacerbated by El Nino, a natural pattern when warmer winds dip south, pushing warm water in the Pacific Ocean toward the west coast of the U.S. and Canada, which can prompt warmer temperatures worldwide.
However, scientists agree that the warming seen in recent years is much more rapid than expected.
“The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilization developed,” Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus’ Climate Change Service, said in a Jan. 9 press release. “This has profound consequences for … all human endeavors. If we want to successfully manage our climate risk portfolio, we need to urgently decarbonize our economy whilst using climate data and knowledge to prepare for the future.”
For far too many Mainers, that dramatic testimony of the realities of climate change literally hit home last week.
