Sea levels and impact on the United States.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

As a follow-up to airiefairie's excellent post on March 11, 2012 ("The drowning country: a case of climate migration"), I wanted to share a new report that has been released in the interim.


NBC Nightly News featured a new scientific report suggesting significant changes in sea levels will impact the United States much sooner than thought. The report entitled Surging Seas

finds the odds of “century” or worse floods occurring by 2030 are on track to double or more, over widespread areas of the U.S. These increases threaten an enormous amount of damage. Across the country, nearly 5 million people live in 2.6 million homes at less than 4 feet above high tide — a level lower than the century flood line for most locations analyzed. And compounding this risk, scientists expect roughly 2 to 7 more feet of sea level rise this century. [see graphic below]

The report has been made available online, and Climate Central has designed a super elegant and user friendly interactive map to see what impact sea level changes will have on your own community. The map draws its information from a peer reviewed study. And it uses the National Elevation Dataset, a product of the U.S. Geological Survey.



The effects of a five foot sea rise on my home town of Hampton, Virginia. The solid blue line indicates the current shoreline, gray shows the areas affected by rising sea levels with the interior blue line the new coast line. The "city" of Poquoson would be completely wiped out. This portion of Virginia is called "Tidewater" and it would be affected the most because of the low laying tidal flats and swampy areas. On a personal note, two weeks ago, my insurance agency dropped home coverage due to my proximity to living near a flood zone in Brooklyn. The letter cited increased risks from hurricanes and other issues associated with climate change (i.e. rising sea levels).

Here what happens to Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens (5 foot rise):




This is the full feature from NBC Nightly News (you *MAY* have to refresh your browser page to reload the embedded video correctly ;)

Comments

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

It's important to be scared and vote Democrat.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Zzz.

Hush, hush, hush. Here comes the Bogey man. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RLgKOamoME&list=FL8AR71E_ddIkROfNsfKi9JA&index=12&feature=plpp_video)

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I vote Piratpartiet, tack så mycket! :)

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I think everything will be all right, if we believe really, really hard... =)

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I thought fear and paranoia was the GOP's M.O.? TERRISTS!!

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

The idea of Global Warming doesn't SCARE me, so talking about it doesn't feel like scare-mongering.

Ultimately I think I, and most people, have a work-a-day attitude to it, well summed up by David Mitchel Here...

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Global Warming Denialism DOES piss me off, so if I ever seem excited on the subject, lay that at the feet of Anger, rather than fear.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that you took time out of your day to come here and share your conclusions with the rest of us. And even more that you needed to edit your single sentence answer to the pressing issue of rising water levels in coastal areas. You conclusion to the information provided of "be scared and vote Democrat" is novel, if completely fucking missing the point. With answers like that, I'd love to see your solutions to thorny dilemmas like being trapped in a paper bag.

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

Um, both parties play that game.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Or one could, perhaps, remain calm, treat the environment better and try to look beyond party lines...

[existentme.livejournal.com]

Actually, just be afraid (of something, anything - terrorists, homasexuls, hoes, rising oceans, falling dollars, anything at all) be afraid of anything but your government, and go right on voting for that same government - either side, no matter - believing it will save you from all or any of those things.

That is what is important.

[usekh.livejournal.com]

As opposed to "Be scared of the brown people, vote Republican"

[dwer.livejournal.com]

shhhh! it's all a hoax, remember? Science is inherently liberal, and therefore cannot be trusted!

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Reality is biased, obviously.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yah!

FOR REAL!!



with a report about the credentials of those that "support" and those that "oppose" the consensus, (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract) and you won't find this on Fox or in the WSJ!

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

The problem with this report is not that the dangers are false. It's that they put a specific timeframe on them. Which means that if the exact specific events don't happen within the exact specific timeframe listed in the article, it will be held up as more "proof" for all of the science denialists and conspiracy theorists. "See! You were TECHNICALLY incorrect! It must be a global marxist conspiracy!" It's what's already being done now by denialists with earlier predictions that were certainly true, just badly estimated (in terms of timeframe).

But hey, I'm a few miles inland in Florida. My home will become beachfront property eventually, so why worry, right? Climate change is TOTES beneficial, ya know.

/sarcasm

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Well the predictions were wrong about one thing: real sea ice melt is happening a lot faster than predicted :/

Summer sea ice changes

Sea ice changes this year were dramatic, with the Arctic September minimum reaching record (or near record) values (depending on the data product). Updating the Stroeve et al, 2007 (http://www.cee.mtu.edu/~reh/papers/pubs/non_Honrath/stroeve07_2007GL029703.pdf) analysis (courtesy of Marika Holland) using the NSIDC data (ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Sep/N_09_area.txt) we can see that the Arctic continues to melt faster than any of the AR4/CMIP3 models predicted.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You mean it'll stop being so cold here?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and Alaska and Australia too!

WHAT DOES GLOBAL MEAN ANYWAY!

Global, schmobal....

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

"Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that 'as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,' my point is, God's still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

-- Senator Inhofe (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/03/fundamentalism-and-public-policy.html)

You obviously need to read more Genesis. Oh, ye of little faith!

[telemann.livejournal.com]

He was scheduled to appear on Rachel Maddow's show, but I wondered if he cancelled that.

[404.livejournal.com]

There is a thought that global warming during the 10th to 13th centuries saved Europe from being the backwater third rate continent it had been for much of the century before.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Well, to be precise, it wasn't "global warming", the "medieval warming" was a very regional thing. (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11644-climate-myths-it-was-warmer-during-the-medieval-period-with-vineyards-in-england.html) Meanwhile during the same period, a dearth of rain in Meso-America destroyed the central American empires that had huge cities, and droughts that affected native American tribes in the American south west. The bigger picture is what counts for GLOBAL climate change.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

where is the solution?

[404.livejournal.com]

Vote Obama?

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

ah man, but if we are all forced to move around and find homes in new parts of The States then we're gona cause everything to be all stirred up. i mean, we have parents and grandparents who have worked hard to settle certain areas and LEARN to get along with other settlers in that given area...know what i mean

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

I think I just heard the entire Souix nation yell "hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll nooooooo!!!"

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

You know everyone. You may not live in Florida (ahem) and may not care about any of this.

But let me propose an incentive. If we do not reverse global temperatures now, something terrible is going to happen in the future.

I'm not talking about shrinking coastlines.

I'm not talking about more natural weather disasters.

Oh no it'll be much worse then that...

Every day the global warming around the world increases, it will become that much harder to keep your beer cold.

If we don't do something now, eventually our future generations will have to live with the horrors of warm beer!

George W. Bush approves this message... I'm sure.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Oh I should have included South Florida:

5 foot increase of water:

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

I live in the midwest. We only have to worry about tornadoes on a regular basis.

This is just more of the great thinning out of the herd that's been predicted since at least the 90s. Millions at risk? Brother, that'll be just a warm up exercise. Billions are going to die because of looming overpopulation and the problems it will cause. Think of it as nature's "market correction".

Solutions

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Posters are asking for solutions. Right on the same site if you click around for awhile you find things like this (from my home Liberal state of MD):

http://mde.maryland.gov/programs/Air/ClimateChange/Documents/www.mde.state.md.us/assets/document/Air/ClimateChange/Chapter5.pdf

We probably cannot stop and reverse climate change any time soon. It is pointless to argue about the cause except in the long term. The problem is if governments deny it is even happening they become unprepared, and of course likely will want expensive federal government handouts when it hits them. Why should "liberal" states who act conservatively reward "conservative" states for being unprepared?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Maybe people will finally shell out the dough for Lousiana coastlines due to this, but I won't hold my breath. Nothing makes people in the USA balk like actually providing solutions for a problem.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Louisiana's coastlines are sinking. Not being flooded.

The sea level could drop a whole foot and Grande Isle would still be fucked.