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As Sea Level Rises, Everglades Become More Vital to South Florida’s Survival
Posted by Climate Central: Bruce Dorminey on October 11th, 2011
Climate Central: Climate change threatens every part of the U.S. in one-way or another, but in South Florida, it's not just a threat: it's a looming catastrophe. Much of the area lies just a few feet above sea level, and thanks to warming temperatures and melting polar ice, the sea is on the rise. A few decades from now, significant parts of the region could literally be underwater. Not only that: while hurricanes could be fewer as time goes on, the ones that do sweep in are likely to be more powerful, with higher...
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As the Climate Warms, Magnolias Move North
Posted by Climate Central: Bruce Dorminey on October 5th, 2011
Climate Central: Warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons, brought on by climate change, are causing the iconic Southern Magnolia to migrate north. Credit: Gottfried/flickr.
Scarlett O'Hara herself would likely be scandalized by what researchers found when scouring a plot of central North Carolina forest outside Chapel Hill. Jennifer Gruhn was looking for Southern magnolias, one of the most enduring symbols of the American South (besides Scarlett herself, of course), and the state flower of both Mississippi...
Sea Level Rise to Put the “Squeeze” on Coastal Georgia
Posted by Climate Central: Bruce Dorminey on July 25th, 2011
Climate Central: Some 60 miles south of Savannah, Dorset Hurley strides into chest-high cordgrass on the mainland side of the Sapelo Island ferry dock. Standing in elevated muck on a recent steamy summer's afternoon, he gestures toward a tidal creek running along an isolated spit of road.
"At high tide here, we would be ankle deep in water,' says Hurley, an estuarine ecologist at Georgia's Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve. He snaps off the end of a dead cordgrass blossom and looks east long enough...