Five years ago a charred cedar tree root was found 53 feet below the ocean surface, some nine miles north of the Island as it is today. It is evidence of what the 250 square mile Bermuda archipelago looked like some 8,000 years ago — a benchmark for exactly how much of Bermuda was lost beneath the waves in the years preceding our Island’s discovery.

Since 1880 the water above that cedar tree root has risen by eight inches. While scientists have long known the rate of sea level rise is accelerating, the most recent and more accurate estimates indicate that by 2100 sea levels will have risen anywhere between 11 inches and four feet, and that doesn’t take into account melting ice caps and glaciers.

Released this March, the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations group charged with progressively summarising the latest climate science data, concluded that ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is crumbling, heatwaves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and sea levels are rising at a pace that is already threatening coastal communities.

The IPCC’s fifth assessment report suggested that a sea-level increase of one metre would damage up to 60 percent of resort properties in the Caribbean, and destroy or damage 21 airports and inundate land around 35 ports in the region. Mitigating that damage will cost an annual $200 billion by 2030, according to the UN. Those costs are only expected to rise as the world is forced to turn to renewable energy sources without the certainty of market support. Across the Atlantic, the UK is spearheading a private equity injection of £3 billion for renewable energy projects and other clean technology developments. In places like Florida and other coastal regions of the US, insurers have stopped providing flood insurance altogether.

Compared to other low-lying regions in the Pacific, as one local scientist pointed out, the rise in sea levels on the Bermuda platform has not been as pronounced.

“That said, there are many factors at play,” said Dr Nicholas Bates, contributing author to the IPCC’s fourth and fifth climate change assessment reports and associate director of research at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

Dr Bates noted: “I think it’s a pretty confident prediction that sea levels will rise in the future. Then you have to think about, well, what would be the impacts Bermuda?

“There’s an impact on coastal erosion — the storm impacts, hurricanes, winter storms eroding cliff faces, storm surge inundation into lower lying areas, for example.”

The rule of thumb, according to scientists, is that with every centimetre the sea rises, the impact of a hurricane on Bermuda’s shores will be significantly greater, with storm surge increasing by about a foot each time.

But beyond storm surges and coastal erosion, said Dr Bates, there are implications for Bermuda’s coral reefs with increased ocean acidification and, in turn, tourism, as well as the legal headaches that will result from the loss of privately owned land.

Assessing all of those factors locally is the newly formed Climate Change Working Group, a collaboration of both private and public sector representatives who will eventually present Government with a framework on how to adapt to — and offset — the threat posed to Bermuda’s natural and man-made resources. Led by the Departments of Sustainable Development and Environmental Protection, the group is aiming to develop “a firm and relevant policy framework to adapt to the realistic threats emanating from the planet’s rising temperature and greenhouse gas emissions,” said a Government spokeswoman in a statement. A national approach, regardless of what form it ultimately takes is critical, according to David Freestone, a leading scholar on International Climate Change Law professor at George Washington University and chairman of the Sargasso Sea Alliance. He said: “If you leave it to the individuals they’ll just build sea walls.”

That, said Mr Freestone, is a “worst-case scenario”.

“There is no one policy that you can take to all of these circumstances. In the UK, they’ve decided they are not going to defend all areas of the East Coast. They’ve drained the marshes, and they’ve decided they are going to just let that go. Slowly, but they are not going to fight to keep all that land. So I think they are going to let that become wetland and let the wetland adjust; so the natural forces will adjust. The general agricultural land they’ve decided they’re just going to let it go. But with Bermuda you don’t got a lot of land left do you?”

Protecting that land and mitigating losses will not come cheaply, Mr Freestone noted, but unlike some other nations threatened by climate change, Bermuda has the finance to proactively tackle the problem head-on, assuming the national debt can be whittled down to a manageable size. “Soft engineering” would be a viable option, he said. Bermuda could build sand dunes to divert waves and mitigate the erosion of beaches in a way that is both sustainable and easy on the eye. The local implications regarding insurance will also be a problem, said Mr Freestone.

“That’s going to have an impact on Bermuda as well. There will be more claims on those insurance policies because some of these things will become uninsurable. You do have a lot of low-lying areas that would be at risk. If you read the [IPCC’s] advice, the first area you’d go to are the areas at risk on an island-wide level.”

For Dr Bates, the real questions are what will happen beneath the rising tides, some of which will not be answered until after the damage, if any, is done. “Obviously coral reefs are important for tourism, for protecting the coast from wave action, and they’re an important nursery for juvenile fish. The corals have to keep up with sea level rise, and will they be able to keep up with a higher sea level? Perhaps not, but it’s only a metre or so.

“The light levels are probably such that the corals should remain fairly healthy, but you have to remember the impacts are not just sea levels on corals, it’s warming, ocean acidification, which is changing the chemistry of the oceans around Bermuda. And we know that Bermuda’s reefs chemistry is changing at much [higher] rates than other places.”

The Department of Conservation Services has recognised this threat, and is working with marine biologist and programme officer for the Sargasso Sea Alliance, Dr Samia Sarkis, to examine what the impact might be to the coral reef community.

“We know that our coral reefs play a crucial role in mitigating the effects of storms and hurricanes.

“It is estimated that the coral reefs surrounding Bermuda dissipate 75-85 percent of the storm tide. This coastal protection service was estimated at 37 percent of the total coral reef economic value. The Department is currently investigating the possibility of using computer simulation models to look at different scenarios of ‘reef health’ and determine how this may affect their coastal protection service.”

While lawmakers in America debate whether climate change is actually happening at all, Mr Freestone cautioned against such arguments, saying that in the face of clear scientific data there is no excuse for further delaying efforts to turn the tide of climate change, so to speak.

“It needs to be taken seriously. Remember, the IPCC represents about 90 percent of the serious climate scientists. There is no question that climate change is happening. You can’t deny it. There’s been a lot of deniers but US policy is quite clear that climate change is happening already and most scientist know this already.

“You can quote me on this: There is not really any room for a serious debate about it. It’s happening.”