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

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we don't have a whole lot of feet above that either, and that doesn't even factor in the flooding that would happen when tropical storms hit.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah it would be worse during storms after losing so much coastline.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

And I'm assuming that this "new coastline" didn't have time to develop new barrier islands. Sea erosion is going to continue until sediment is built up enough to hold back the waves. Certain cities like Cocoa and New Smyrna already have enough trouble protecting it's beach from being swept away.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Also, about the video. A skeptic mentioned "land sinking".

Does he mean subsidence? Is he suggesting that all coastal areas are somehow losing elevation or that the earth is shrinking?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

He's a well known CATO based anti-global-warming guru that's carted out as an expert by Republicans during any hearings in Congress.