By EVAN LEHMANN and CLIMATEWIRE <http://www.climatewire.net/>
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Federal officials are struggling to calculate the fiscal impact that climate change could have on the nation's troubled public flood insurance program, amid predictions of intensifying downpours and more potent hurricanes. The mission is proving extremely difficult, according to one researcher, who said the effort so far has failed to reveal even "squishy assumptions."
The study, undertaken by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which runs the insurance program, aims to determine how seawater will surge onto shorelines around the United States as warming oceans expand and rise. It also seeks to establish how warming temperatures will affect inland flooding nationwide, potentially revealing the likelihood of more damage in some riverine areas.
The results might raise policy premiums and mark a need to redraw flood lines that may place more homes in the riskiest parts of valleys and flatlands. Those changes are politically tricky, and the study could press lawmakers to make unpopular decisions that have an economic impact on their states.
Mark Crowell, a FEMA geologist who is overseeing the study, said it may be "one of the most important" analyses undertaken by the agency over the next several years. "It is imperative to understand how climate change can impact the National Flood Insurance Program," he said.
The insurance program has been criticized by environmentalists for offering policies -- and sometimes prices -- that encourage people to build homes in flood-prone areas. The study could answer complaints about the program's use of historical records to ascertain risk by providing future estimates of flood damage in a warming world.
That could drive changes to building codes, raise insurance premium prices and shift determinations of where development may be allowed -- all projected on potential impacts of climate change through 2090.