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

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

It's also dark in half of the globe right now... The Sun has abandoned us! We're all gonna die. :-O

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

All that ice is useless where it is. We need it on our skiing tracks. Not those stupid machines that make artificial snow, that stuff hurts like hell when you fall on your bum on it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

To Inhofe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

How have we sinned? Why is the Sun favoring the other side!?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

It's hiding from Newt, that's why!

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I think Republicans have blacklisted her show and won't appear. Maddow is just too catty. ;)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

But they have charts & graphs...

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

They've always been the geographically luckier side, that's why.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

No no, that's the Moon. Get your celestial bodies right, Mister!

[telemann.livejournal.com]

She's gotten a few to appear, including Newt's daughter on Tuesday; and Rachel is no where as snarky and confrontational as Fox News (e.g. Bill O'Really).

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Rakia will save the day yet again. And tarator, too.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But Rachel likes to use a lot of facts in her arguments, and Republicans have grown used to Fox News, where the atmosphere is so cushy and fact-free.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

That's less impressive once you realize how easy it is to build peer consensus.

If you consider those who agree with you peers and those that disagree with you 'not peers' then half the work is done.

[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.

[404.livejournal.com]

Torrents for everyone! Yar!

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'It's that they put a specific timeframe on them. '

If a doctor tells a patient that unless they do "x" they won't live past the next year and the patient lives another 10-15 years without "x", I'd say the prediction is pretty worthless.

Predictions the sea would rise between a foot to a meter between 1970 to 2030 so far are going to hit below a foot at the current rate.

But let's say CO2 is the culprit, great news, we're running out of petrocarbs one day. But don't worry, we can switch to wind and solar.... but do you want to know what the slowdown in convection and change in radiance of the Earth will do with the temperature? Yup, that's right. It's predicted it'll raise it.

So what are we to do?

That's right, run around like mad and vote Democrat.

[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.

[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.

[bikinisquad3000.livejournal.com]

And if you speak hypothetically, nobody will know if it was actually done. So have people been demoted from the status of "peer" after disagreeing on this issue?

[bikinisquad3000.livejournal.com]

So we have to keep burning fossil fuels if we want to keep the planet's temperature down? Do you have anything explaining that in more detail?

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Maybe they closed the airport and he couldn't land.

Oh wait, that's never stopped him before. O_o

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

But, but, there was SNOW somewhere in the world this winter, and I totally had to put a SWEATER on the other day!

And you can't tell me that the polar bears couldn't benefit from less sea ice. They're FILTHY. They could use a nice bath. And remember, sea ice led to Drew Barymore having to help those poor whales. ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE DREW BARYMORE CRY?!

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ha! For real ;)

[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.