CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The KRIS 6 weather team has been forecasting dangerous heat this month, and the National Weather Service said drought conditions will rapidly worsen in some areas.
Philippe Tissot is a professor at the Conrad Blucher Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi who studies environmental trends along the coast.
“We’re on a path to stronger more frequent heat waves, droughts, and we have to manage them,” he said.
Tissot said the impact of climate change can be seen on our beaches.
“The land sinking, the subsidence is something that is different or more pronounced,” he said.
Tissot breaks it down like this: Global warming is causing glaciers to melt in Greenland and Antarctica, causing sea levels to rise about an inch per year.
That could cause a domino effect and threaten people and homes in the Coastal Bend.
“Every year it’s becoming a little bit easier to flood," he said. "When there’s a hurricane, the waters are going to be a little bit longer."
This is something TxDOT and Corpus Christi city leaders have began to respond to.
“We elevated the JFK Causeway because it used to flood. On Flour Bluff we’re improving the roads,” Tissot said.
Laguna Shores Road in Flour Bluff recently was elevated to mitigate floods. Drainage along the road is also improved.
Despite these actions, Tissot warns we should prepare for even more coastal flooding in the years to come, because climate change is only getting worse.
“Whatever we do now to mitigate the climate change will take decades to take place.”
