Tangier’s Climate Problem

        The group of  islands (many are now under water) that include Tangier was settled by Europeans in the 1600s, and people have lived there continuously since1. While everyday life went by on the island, and its population started to grow, the land mass started slowly shrinking.

A wide shot ofTangier Island, image by Chris Gabel, used with his permission.

Tangier’s biggest environmental issue is the rising sea levels, especially when you consider that the rising sea levels are being combined with the falling of Tangier’s shorelines. Tangier exists in a state of perpetual sinking – even before you add climate change into the equation – in no small part due to erosion overtime2. Climate change being a growing problem worldwide has made the shrinkage of Tangier only go faster. Since the oldest accurate maps of the islands back in 1850, only about one third of the original land mass remains3. 

The Chesapeake Bay – and Tangier Island –  is located in what is called a “Hot spot” of relative sea level rise (RSLR), which means the sea level is rising faster in the waters that surround Tangier Island than they are in comparison to the global average.4 This fact throws yet another dent in what already is a very dire situation – the sea level around Tangier is not just rising, it is rising faster when compared to the rest of the world – Tangier is in a uniquely bad position for an island that was already heading underwater slowly before climate change.

  1. Tangier Planning Commission, Tangier Town Plan, 1996, Tangier, Virginia http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CZIC-ht168-v8-t36-1996/html/CZIC-ht168-v8-t36-1996.htm, Tangier Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan,” Current Population Survey, 2003 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, accessed December 3, 2024 ↩︎
  2. David Schulte, Karin Dridge, and Mark Hudgins, “Climate Change and the Evolution and Fate of the Tangier Islands of Chesapeake Bay, USA.” Nature.com, December 10, 2015, Accessed December 3, 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep17890#citeas. ↩︎
  3. Schulte, Dridge, Hudgins, “Climate Change and the Evolution and Fate of the Tangier Islands of Chesapeake Bay, USA.” ↩︎
  4. Schulte, Dridge, Hudgins, “Climate Change and the Evolution and Fate of the Tangier Islands of Chesapeake Bay, USA.” ↩︎