NEWPORT — The images should be familiar to most Rhode Islanders. The Warwick Mall surrounded by floodwaters. Route 95 cut in two by a torrent of water. Misquamicut businesses washed away in a storm surge. Beachside roads buried in sand.

The photos taken during the spring floods of 2010 and the aftermath of superstorm Sandy in October 2012 were shown on Wednesday at a conference at Salve Regina University on sea-level rise and extreme weather. They were used to illustrate what climate scientists say is a future of more devastating storms caused by global warming.

“We know that intensity is likely to increase,” said Austin Becker, associate professor of coastal planning at the University of Rhode Island.

But perhaps the more disquieting pictures shown by Becker during his presentation were taken more recently when there was no storm. They showed the effects in North Kingstown of a moon tide from earlier this year when waters in Wickford Harbor washed over docks and into parking lots.

Though it may not be the new normal yet for Rhode Island, such events will only become more common in the coming years as temperatures go up and seas gradually rise, speakers said at the 13th annual Ronald C. Baird Sea Grant Science Symposium. The facts, they said, are incontrovertible.

“We need to forget politics for a moment,” said oceanographer John Englander. “This is physics.”

Englander, the Florida-based author of “High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis,” delivered the keynote speech at the all-day conference sponsored by the Coastal Resources Center and Rhode Island Sea Grant, both at URI, and the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina.

In his 45-minute talk, Englander summarized the data on rising seas. The average sea level hasn’t been higher in 120,000 years than it is today. While sea levels hadn’t changed much in 5,000 years, in the last century they have risen 8 inches on average. While the rise has been smaller on the West Coast — Los Angeles has seen a 4-inch increase — it has been higher on the East Coast, with New York City experiencing a 14-inch increase and Boston a 13-inch increase.

The trend will continue, Englander said, and to devastating effect if the miles-thick ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt. Then, sea-level rise will be measured in feet, not inches.

Those events — if they come to pass — are many years away, said Englander, but he urged the public to act now to plan for the future and make coastlines more resilient in the face of a changing climate.

“You may not like the trend, but you can get ahead of it,” he said.

Rhode Island, with its 400 miles of coastline, is particularly vulnerable, but it may also be the perfect place to take action. The state’s small size makes it easier for public officials to band together to plan ahead, and its strong scientific community gives Rhode Island a deep knowledge base, Englander and others said.

Already, Janet Coit, director of the Department of Environmental Management, and Grover Fugate, director of the Coastal Resources Management Council — who were both at the conference — are meeting regularly with other officials as part of a state climate change commission to work on adaptation and mitigation efforts.

“The whole premise is that waiting is unaffordable,” said Pam Rubinoff, coastal climate extension specialist at the Coastal Resources Center.

The 29 shops and restaurants damaged or completely destroyed by Sandy two years ago have learned that lesson first-hand. All have rebuilt, said Lisa Konicki, director of the Westerly-Pawcatuck Area Chamber of Commerce, but some have had to spend more to go higher and some have invested only in temporary structures.

The Little Mermaids restaurant was washed away in the storm. The owners have replaced it with a trailer.

“The reality is if a storm is coming, they can unplug and drive away,” said Konicki.

Paddy’s Beach restaurant, which was also devastated by the storm surge, followed a similar strategy, using tents and shade sails that can easily be packed away the next time a storm like Sandy is forecast.

“They’re better prepared for the future,” said Konicki. “They know it’s not over.”