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North Carolina's coast is one of the many reasons our state is among the most beautiful in the nation, but a changing climate is impacting how the coast looks. This is perhaps most notable in Rodanthe, where four homes have collapsed into the ocean in the last two years."We're going to see more houses succumb to the power of the sea. Those won't be the last," David Hallac, Superintendent of National Parks of Eastern NC, said.Change on the Outer Banks is natural, but even slight alterations can have major flooding impacts on land, just feet above sea level, like the Bodie Island Lighthouse in Nags Head."The degree to which climate change and sea level rise is exacerbating that is hard to measure. But all the scientists are saying all the things we're starting to see are more and more influenced by climate change and sea level rise every day," said Pablo Hernandez, Resident Engineer NCDOT Division 1.The growing severity and power of the storms have forced the North Carolina Department of Transportation to re-evaluate where and how they build, after seeing storms tear apart asphalt."Not just wrinkled like a sheet of paper but wrinkled with 3-4 foot undulations in it or the asphalt just gone. You don't know if it went out into the ocean with it or out into the sound," Hallac said.The authors of the North Carolina Climate Science Report say there is no doubt climate is changing."There's been interesting arguments for what's the driver of climate change, you look around you see changes in our climate, increasing wildfires out west, rising sea level here, changing weather patterns. Climate across the state and across the world for all of us is changing," Reide Corbett, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute, said."Thinking about what a climate resilient future looks like in these places. How do we protect these places so we can go there for the next few decades but also our future generations and our kids can go there," Kathie Dello, director of the North Carolina State Climate Office, said.One effort to protect the coast is taking place in New Hanover County where shore protection engineers move existing sand to shield against potential damage to the economy and industry."Being more efficient with your money and your sand resources and continuing to keep your natural resources in the front of the line," Layton Bedsole, shore protection coordinator for New Hanover County, said.It's an example of investment and adaptation that experts say needs to be more prevalent across the entire coast."There are these little pots of money certainly at the state level and more pots available at the federal level to begin planning for these challenges that we're going to face and notice I didn't say may face. That we will face in the not-too-distant future," Corbett said.
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原文来源：https://www.wxii12.com/article/forecasting-our-future-climate-change-impact-north-carolina-coast/41984197#
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