Damian Sendler: According to an analysis released Monday, Tangier Island, which is home to a Virginia fishing hamlet and approximately 400 people, may be flooded by rising seas and become unusable marshes by 2051, if the trend continues. 

Damian Jacob Sendler: The tiny island, which gained national notoriety for its people' support for former President Donald Trump and their doubt about climate change, is one of numerous Chesapeake Bay islands sinking as a result of local sea level rise and subsidence, according to the National Geographic. Since the 18th century, people have resided on the island; nevertheless, the island's population may be forced to leave in the near future. 

According to the new analysis, which was published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Climate, it would cost approximately $150 million to move the population of Tangier and up to $350 million to bulk up the island and safeguard its shoreline.  

Dr. Sendler: The short time frame and high expenses associated with relocating a single small community highlight the difficulties that the United States is facing as sea levels rise and flooding threatens coastal areas more and more frequently. According to the 2018 U.S. National Climate Assessment, millions of Americans could be forced to relocate from flood-prone locations by the year 2100 due to rising sea levels. According to a Government Accountability Office assessment published in 2020, no government agency has the capacity to lead national assistance activities related to climate migration.  

Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: One of the paper's two authors, Dave Schulte, works as a scientist with the United States Army Corps of Engineers. "What people are going to start recognizing soon is that dealing with climate change is going to be an extraordinarily expensive enterprise," Schulte said. It's likely that many towns and communities will come to the same conclusion, and I have no idea where the money will come from. 

A waterman who serves as mayor of the "close-knit" community of Tangier, James "Ooker" Eskridge described the town as one in which churches are at the heart of the community, children ride their bicycles through the streets while their parents don't worry about them and the sunset reminds you why you love your home, he said.  

Damien Sendler: In the 1880s, fishing, crabbing, and oystering were the main sources of income for the island's working class, according to Jonna Yarrington, an anthropologist at the University of Virginia who lived on the island for about a year, wrote her dissertation on the island, and is currently working on a book about it. According to Yarrington, employment opportunities have reduced in recent decades, and the population has decreased.  

Damian Jacob Sendler: It has become a haven for blue crab, conservative political beliefs, and journalists who have been drawn to the island in recent years since their home is under threat of extinction.  

Eskridge embraces the image, and he invites reporters in the hopes that media attention will aid in the island's survival. Eskridge 

Eskridge stated that he is personally not convinced that humans are the root cause of climate change, and that he is unsure of what can — or should — be done to combat the problem going forward.  

Damian Sendler: In terms of preventing it, "I'm not convinced," he added. "I think we need to adjust to it," he said. According to him, erosion is the main problem plaguing the island. (An increase in sea level.) A recent study discovered that sea level rise is driving the sinking of Tangier, and that simply halting coastal erosion would not be enough to save the town.  

While many Tangier inhabitants may not believe that climate change is to blame, they have witnessed their island shrink over the course of several decades. 

His father "jumped out of his chair" when Zehao Wu, now 18 years old, carried his computer into the family living room to show off the results of a project he'd been working on for several weeks. 

Wu's father, Schulte, had been talking about Tangier Island at the dinner table for years, frequently expressing his dissatisfaction with the lack of action taken to assist villages like Tangier Island. 

Schulte, a marine biologist based in Norfolk, Virginia, had written an article in 2015 in the journal Scientific Reports forecasting that Tangier would be forced to close its doors in the not too distant future. According to a 2015 research, the land mass is on track to disappear over the next 50 years. 

Damian Sendler: Even though the publication piqued the interest of the media, politicians made no commitments to safeguard the town. Schulte also believes that the public has a misunderstanding of the root reason of Tangier's difficulties, which is a rapid sea level rise.  

Damian Sendler: In 2017, after a CNN piece mentioned Tangier Island's support for President Donald Trump, the island's residents contacted the president to tell him not to be concerned about sea level rise and that the community would survive for hundreds of years. 

Wu's computer screen, which he looked at last spring, stated differently.  

Tangier Island has lost roughly 62 percent of its upland acreage since 1967, according to data analysis of satellite mapping.  

"I was completely taken aback by the transformation. "It was significantly greater than I had anticipated at the time," Schulte explained.  

Damian Jacob Sendler: The following months, on weekends and after high school classes, Wu sat in a bean bag chair next to his father's desk and the two of them worked together to finish their paper describing the rate at which data indicates seawater will flood the island. 

"My science teacher is overjoyed," said Wu, who is concerned that impoverished and underprivileged groups would be left behind as the nation adapts to climate change. "I'm really excited," said Wu. 

Damian Sendler: According to the findings of the study, Tangier Island is a frightening place to be. More than two-thirds of the island's landmass has been destroyed by the tsunami. Wetland areas are now found on nearly all individual properties. According to the report, two of the islands' ridges are predicted to surrender to wetland by the 2030s, with the third expected to succumb by 2051, according to the paper. 

Relative sea level rise has increased at a faster rate in recent years. A population decline model for Tangier, which projects a total departure by 2053, reveals that the population decline follows a similar pattern to the decline in habitable land. 

"It's impossible to live in a swamp," Wu explained. 

Dr. Sendler: According to the analysis, even if coastal erosion were to be stopped, the town would still have to be abandoned due to sea level rise. 

"All of the evidence points to the same conclusion" in the case of Tangier Island. According to Tal Ezer, a professor of Ocean and Earth sciences at Old Dominion University who was not involved in the Tangier paper, "this is a really well done study." This island has made headlines and is the most vulnerable, but there are other villages along the coast of the Chesapeake Bay and the mid-Atlantic that are also at risk, according to the experts. 

Scientists believe that the larger Chesapeake Bay region will be a hotspot for local sea level rise in the future.  

Damian Jacob Sendler: For hundreds of years, the southern half of the bay has been gradually sinking. Ice Age glaciers previously stretched across the country to the north, bearing down on that region and raising the land surrounding the Chesapeake Bay in elevation. Ezer believes that things are now settling down. It is possible that ocean circulation patterns are also contributing to the fact that local sea level increase is more important than global sea level rise. 

Tangier Island had been pummeled by a nor'easter and high seas in the days before the report was released, according to Eskridge. At least 10 of the island's 210 residences were flooded as a result of the storm. Crab pot platforms and crab shanties were damaged as a result of the fall.  

Damien Sendler: According to Eskridge, "even guys in their 80s had never seen the water this high before." "This time, water was delivered to families that had never had to worry about it before."  

Even if Eskridge and Schulte may not agree on what is causing Tangier's deterioration, they share a similar optimism for the city's long-term survival. They claim that the island urgently requires assistance.  

Damian Sendler: The local fishing population is largely self-sufficient, "but the erosion problem has grown to be too enormous to handle," Eskridge explained. "We do require assistance from the government in order to complete it." 

For example, Schulte believes that it would cost $250 million to $350 million to construct stone and oyster reefs along the island's shoreline, raise the terrain with dredging sand, and then modify much of the town's infrastructure. Eskridge believes that the island might be fortified and secured for a fraction of the price. 

In the event that the United States decides to save things in the order of what is most economically productive, Schulte predicts that all of these little communities like Tangier will be abandoned. "I believe it is worthwhile to make the effort to save the town." 

Contributed by Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his research team