A new study shows climate change could impact airports along the coast of California, including many general aviation airfields.
Scientists at the University of California-Berkeley found that 39 out of 43 coastal airports in California have assets exposed to projected flooding that could disrupt their operations in the next 20 to 40 years.
The researchers conducted a statewide assessment of the exposure of California’s airport infrastructure to projected coastal flooding from storm surge and rising sea levels up to the year 2100.
The research includes a first of its kind coastal flooding exposure assessment of the airports, using geospatial tools to look beyond each airport’s perimeter to include its entire interconnected infrastructure — including road access, ground-based navigation, and communications systems.
“It’s important to recognize that critical assets for airport operations may lie outside airport boundaries,” explains Sarah Lindbergh, lead researcher.
The analysis indicates that 39 out of 43 public coastal California airports have assets exposed to coastal flooding by 2100. This number is much higher than traditional risk assessments that have only considered assets within an airport’s perimeters, the researchers note.
“Although we do not know how these newly identified exposures translate into impact, we were surprised to see that most of the airport assets could see a flooding event in the next 20 years,” Lindbergh reported.
According to the analysis, 16 of the 39 airports have assets exposed within their boundaries, such as runways and taxiways, while the remaining 23 have assets outside of their jurisdiction that are at risk from flooding, such as road access to the airport and navigation systems.
While some of the nation’s biggest airports are on the list, including Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the list also includes many general aviation airports, including:
- Half Moon Bay Airport (KHAF)
- Monterey Regional Airport (KMRY)
- Oceano County Airport (L52)
- Hayward Executive Airport (KHWD)
- Little River Airport (KLLR)
- Murray Field Airport (KEKA) in Eureka
- California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport (KACV)
- Andy Mc Beth Airport (S51) in Klamath Glen
- San Luis County Regional Airport (KSBP)
- McClellan-Palomar Airport (KCRQ) in Carlsbad
The researchers also examined how airports exposed to flooding transfer risks to nine of the state’s other transportation systems, such as highways and railways.
The ripple effects on the transportation of both goods and people could include delays, congestion, and cancellations, they noted.
The report identifies critical airports within these corridors to be prioritized for adaptation, particularly those within the San Francisco Bay-Central Valley-Los Angeles corridor, such as San Francisco International Airport and Oakland International Airport, and also Murray Field Airport in Eureka within the San Francisco Bay–North Coast transportation corridor.
For the new study, the researchers also reviewed more than 100 state legislature and planning documents to address the importance of working together to adapt to climate changes.
This state policy review revealed that market and regulatory incentives for airport infrastructure, such as maintenance, upgrade, and replacement, are mostly bound to an airport’s perimeters.
“Most policies are still being designed to mitigate risk and promote adaptation at the single asset level — for example, one airport at a time,” says Lindbergh.
The researchers argue that measuring the exposure of interconnected infrastructure can help direct state-level policies that promote collaborative climate adaptation plans.
“Our study pushes people to think beyond their boundaries and jurisdictions,” says Lindbergh.
The study was presented at the Society for Risk Analysis annual meeting in early December 2022, as well as printed in the journal Climate Risk Management.
You can read the full study at ScienceDirect.com.
Climate change science fiction demands obedience, not questions based in reality.
Pay your taxes.
Looks like an article out of Pravda! Encouraging to know so many see through this tripe.
I wonder if Mr. Gore plans to sell his Montecito ocean villa?
California is committing $30,000,000,000 to update its catastrophic flood plan because of “Climate Change”. There’s some serious money behind the Climate Change dogma, isn’t there? And this is a state where environmentalists won’t allow us to build flood control worthy dams. Government, the perfect racket…
I must add that I am utterly disappointment in GAN and your inability to filter through this nonsense and I fail to understand your reasoning in spreading this poison.
Look at the decades of the doom and gloom from BHO, Al Gore, Ted Danson and a long line of others that have used these scare tactics to benefit themselves.
BHO is not worried one little bit that his 14 million dollar mansion on Cape Cod is under any threat at all.
History and the passage of time have proven them all wrong and that’s using they’re own words and they’re own time table when they falsely predicted when the rising waters would devour the coast lines.
Don’t take my word for it……..read what they said in their own words yourself….it’s all out there for God and everyone else to see it.
I very much appreciate that GAN does post these important issues, so that we can make constructive comments and maybe get a few of us to express our opinion and the facts to the state legislators.
My experience is that the state folks do listen, vs the U.S. congress folks, who have their own agenda.
We need to park our carbon spewing airplanes to save airports!!!
HAHAHAHA! Oh yes and HAHAHAHA! Typical Global Warming BS
Biggest problem with this country today is institutional (higher) learning,
Lindbergh is, sadly, just another fear-mongering grand-stander. “A new Policy Brief from The Heartland Institute shows there is no evidence of acceleration in the rise of global sea levels since the 1920s and concludes the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) concerns over this issue is “without merit.” Maybe Lindbergh should be asking our esteemed former President Barack Hussein Obama why he has mansions on Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard if they will soon be underwater?
Berkeley…just consider the source.
Agree
Horribly defective study, with extreme bias toward an upper limit of sea level rise that’s basically out of bounds and absurd. This article reeks of a Al Gore mindset. Disappointing and worthless article.
General Aviation News…you can do ALOT better, please.
Totally right, Mr. Richard Johnson.
This not a reality based estimate. It is all computer models based on an extreme ‘guess’ on 4.5 degF rise in temperatures [ RCP 4.5 and 8.5 ], that the model calculates their worst case ice melt and sea level rise.
But 3-4 meters [ 9 – 12 feet] in the next 78 years is impossible.!
The ‘sea level trends’ on the NOAA website show a sea level rise of 1-2 mm [ < 0.1 inches] per year; 156 mm , or 6 inches, in 78 years [ 2100 ]. !
see; https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stations.html?type=Water+Levels.
Many of the tides gauges go back to 1940, so 82 years of real data, and no 'acceleration' of sea level rise indicated.
Oceano and Santa Barbara airports are about 13 feet above sea level. They have 'king' tides of about 6 feet, so they'd need a storm surge of 7 ft to get any water on the runway, during the 'king' tide, which lasts a few hours a month.
So, more liberal, climate crazy hype, to scare the uninformed. [ and low information voters ].
Precisely.
I wondered whether anyone would actually pay money to fund this study. So I looked at the acknowledgements and saw that the State of California paid for it. That makes sense. Use other people’s money. What a waste.