Climate change could snarl U.S. transport: study

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Flooded highways, railroads and airport runways are among the transportation snarls looming as the world's climate changes, and officials should plan with this in mind, a U.S. study says.

Modern transportation that runs on fossil fuel has been singled out as a key cause of climate change but the study released on Tuesday by the National Research Council said most transport also is vulnerable to the effects of global warming.

"We're not just concerned about gradual changes in temperatures," said Henry Schwartz, who chaired the panel that wrote the report. "We're mostly concerned about the extremes, the surprises that may come forth.

"We believe ... that the time to begin to address this issue as a routine part of design and operations is now," he told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Specifically, an expected rise in sea levels would hit roads, pipelines and airports in U.S. coastal areas where population is concentrated, Schwartz said.

"As seas rise, plus storm surges, the impacts (to transportation) can be much more severe and extend greater inland than anything we've experienced heretofore," he said.

Schwartz said some the busiest U.S. airports, including New York City's LaGuardia Airport, are in low-laying coastal zones that are vulnerable to flooding from rising seas.

In addition to sea-level rise -- projected to be 7 to 23 inches this century -- other effects of climate change also could hit transportation hard, the report said.