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

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

What Lovelock warned of was a hypothetical scenario caused by a sudden cutoff of emissions, something which is unlikely to happen. But this ties back in to your doctor analogy: assume that a patient is extremely out of shape and overweight. Bloodwork, all tests indicate severe problems. The doctor says: "Hey, patient, if you don't do something, you're likely to be dead within a year."

There are three possibilities. First, the patient does nothing. He might survive for a time. He might even greatly outlive the doctor's predictions. This doesn't prove the doctor wrong, because on average, people with certain conditions and traits DO suffer ill health effects. Outliers, or people who are just plain lucky, don't disprove the science here any more than admitted overestimations in the sea level by scientists last decade disprove the established science of climate change.

But let's pretend the patient goes on a crash diet, vigorous exercise routine, marathons, weight lifting, etc. Then he drops dead of a heart attack because he overstressed his system. That's what you're warning about.

We're not talking about cutting off all emissions, though. We're talking about the "patient" cutting out bad habits, gradually transitioning to a more active lifestyle, better eating, etc. No one except a minority fringe is talking about rolling back the Industrial Revolution. Yea, we need solutions, some right away. We do need action now; but no amount of cuts in emissions we could make today is going to produce the sudden crash Lovelock warns of, especially since what's already in the atmosphere is so long-lived.

Meanwhile, the answer from the deniers is to say: "What? He's not fat! And if he WERE fat, it's certainly not because of his sedentary lifestyle and diet! And if it IS his fault, making changes will just kill him!" That's just absurd. And hey, maybe the patient WILL be lucky, and live that extra decade or two. Maybe the timeframe will be off. We're talking about a big system, with lots of variables. But eventually time runs out, and the bill is called due. There are some things that aren't up for debate or unsettled, except, again, for a fringe minority.

I'm not advocating "running around and voting Democrat." Unless you like the Democrats and agree with their policies. Then you're free to vote for them. Running around is optional.

But what I'd say to people who'd rather vote Republican is: your party would be very well served by accepting the real science, and present real solutions. If you don't like the Democratic solutions to climate change, give us better ones. Instead of denying science, prove that your party is one of practical solutions to national issues, instead of one that buries its head and hides from issues that are inconvenient.