GALVESTON, Texas—What will Galveston look like in 100 years? It’s a question researchers have been trying to answer.

Most people are drawn to Galveston’s beaches for the waves, the sand and the view.

Lynn Smith is one of those people.

“When we bought this house five years ago, we were the third house from the Gulf, and we were very comfortable with that,” Smith said.

But she’s not comfortable with how the ocean is chipping away at Galveston’s West End, one wave at a time.

Now she owns the second house from the water.

“I’m less comfortable with being the second house. I feel a lot more vulnerable,” she said.

Despite the seawall and the dunes, Mother Nature continues to crawl forward in Galveston, drawing new lines in the sand.

Homes that end up too close to the water have to be torn down.

But losing a few homes pales in comparison to what a Texas A&M researcher says could happen over the next 100 years.

Dr. David Yoskowitz believes that global warming is causing the sea level to rise.

In 100 years, he predicts the sea could rise 1.5 meters. If that happens, the only part of Galveston that would remain above the water is the area built up around the seawall.

Parts of Harris and Chambers counties would also be taken back by the sea, causing billions of dollars worth of damage.

“We focused just on buildings – both private and public buildings. We didn’t take into account roads, utility lines, sewer lines,” Yoskowitz said.

But Rice professor John Anderson doesn’t see the same doomsday scenario that Yoskowitz predicts.

“The current predictions for sea level are that it will rise somewhere between 2 and 3 feet over the next century,” Anderson said.

Galveston planners say it’s time to study the different studies.

“We don’t want to disappear,” Chula Sanchez of the Galveston Planning Commission.

Sanchez and the commission want to formulate a building plan to keep their city on the map.

“We need to pay attention to those numbers and not be in denial. Is it a different building system altogether? Are we off-shore living quarters? Are we taller? Or a lot taller?” Sanchez said.

That’s the million-dollar question, and it comes as millions of dollars are being poured into rebuilding the city after Hurricane Ike.

Rice University researchers are already drawing sketches of structures that could withstand climate change or big storms.

They say the trend has to be one where the city is built up – literally.

The other option reaches far beyond Galveston Island:  To slow global warming.

“How do we fuel our cars and cool our homes and sources of power that we use for that? Are we going to be a carbon-based economy or a green economy?” Yoskowitz said.

“Do we sit around and say, ‘OK, it’s going to happen 100 years out, so let’s not worry about it now,’ or say ‘Hey, let’s plan for our grandchildren,’” Yoskowitz added.

Smith would definitely like to plan for that.  She has triplet grandsons who love to play in the sand at her beachfront home.

“They’re going to have a lot of memories of being down there,” she said.

She doesn’t want the island as we know it to become just a memory.