{"id":18254,"date":"2018-06-11T10:48:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T08:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redanalysis.org\/?p=18254"},"modified":"2021-10-04T19:07:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T17:07:57","slug":"la-marine-vs-climat-et-oc%c3%a9an-changement-ins%c3%a9curit%c3%a9-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redanalysis.org\/fr\/2018\/06\/11\/the-u-s-navy-vs-climate-and-ocean-change-insecurity-1\/","title":{"rendered":"La marine am\u00e9ricaine face \u00e0 l'ins\u00e9curit\u00e9 li\u00e9e au changement climatique et oc\u00e9anique (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Navy is under higher and growing pressure from climate and ocean change. This situation is emphasized in\u00a0The Impact of Sea-Level Rise and Climate Change on Department of Defense Installations on Atolls in the Pacific Ocean<\/a>\u00a0(Curt D. Storlazzi, Stephen B. Gingerich et al., February 2018, full pdf report<\/a>), funded among others by the Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). This research shows that numerous Pacific atolls and islands\u00a0 are impacted by repeated floods and slat water infiltration, and could be submersed during the next decades because of the rising ocean, and as a result the U.S. Navy could be directly impacted because some of these islands are used as bases between America and the Asia-Pacific region. In other words, climate change-led rising ocean is putting at extreme risks the fulcrum needed by the U.S. Navy to project itself in the Asia-Pacific region (Charles Edel, \u201cSmall dots, Large strategic areas: US Interests in the South Pacific<\/a>\u201d, Real Clear Defense<\/em>, 03 April 2018).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, climate change is also affecting the U.S. Navy on continental America, because of the ever-faster rise of the ocean, which interacts with the littoral where the U.S. Navy bases are installed (Jim Morrison, \u201cFlooding Hot Spots: Why Seas are Rising Faster on the Eastern Sea Coast\u201d<\/a>, Yale Environment e360<\/em>, April 24, 2018). Beside a rising ocean, climate change also means a present and future multiplication\u00a0\"File:151123-N-OI810-749 and reinforcement of extreme weather events. Those events are having a disrupting potential on the sea lanes navigated by the six US fleets (Bob Berwyn, \u201cHurricane Season 2018: Experts Warn of Super Storms, Call For New Category 6<\/a>\u201d, Inside Climate News<\/em>, June 2, 2012). In other words, one should wonder if climate change, and the new emerging geophysical conditions that are currently emerging, are not jeopardizing the very infrastructures and missions of the U.S. Navy, thus imposing a perfectly unexpected but growing constraint on its global reach.<\/p>\n

In a first part, we shall look at how climate change is literally \u201cbesieging\u201d the U.S. Navy. In a second part, we shall look at the way this planetary challenge is imposing an ever-growing amount of \u201cfriction\u201d on the infrastructures and missions of the U.S. Navy. Then, we shall wonder about the strategic consequences of the interactions between a changing climate and ocean and the U.S. Navy. Could we see these dynamics as a signal of a planetary assault on U.S. sea power over the coming years?<\/p>\n

The US Navy and the climate-ocean Hyper siege<\/h1>\n

The rising ocean has started besieging the U.S. Navy. The rate of the sea-rise is rapidly accelerating, especially on the U.S. eastern coast: for example, in Florida, since 2006 the rise\u2019s rate went from 3 to 9 millimetres a year (Erika Bolstad, \u201cHigh ground is becoming hot property as sea level rises<\/a>\u201d, Scientific American<\/em>, 1 May 2017). This accelerating rate is accompanied by a multiplication of high tide floods events (Jim Morrison, \u201cFlooding Hot Spots: Why Seas are Rising Faster on the Eastern Sea Coast<\/a>\u201d, Yale Environment e360<\/em>, April 24, 2018). For example, the Norfolk station, headquarter of the Atlantic fleet, and part of the gigantic Hampton roads complex, home to the nuclear aircraft carriers fleet, is flooded ten times a year nowadays (Laura Parker, \u201cWho\u2019s Still Fighting Climate Change? The U.S. Military<\/a>\u201d, National Geographic<\/em>, February 7, 2017).<\/p>\n