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Rising Seas Set To Double Coastal Flooding By 2050, Says Study (phys.org)
Coastal flooding is about to get dramatically more frequent around the world as sea levels rise from global warming, researchers said Thursday. Phys.Org reports, "A 10-to-20 centimeter (four-to-eight inch) jump in the global ocean watermark by 2050 -- a conservative forecast -- would double flood risk in high-latitude regions, they reports in the journal Scientific Reports." From the report: Major cities along the North American seaboard such as Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with the European Atlantic coast, would be highly exposed, they found. But it would only take half as big a jump in ocean levels to double the number of serious flooding incidents in the tropics, including along highly populated river deltas in Asia and Africa. Even at the low end of this sea rise spectrum, Mumbai, Kochi and Abidjan and many other cities would be significantly affected. To make up for the lack of observational data, Vitousek and his colleagues used computer modeling and a statistical method called extreme value theory. "We asked the question: with waves factored in, how much sea level rise will it take to double the frequency of flooding?" Sea levels are currently rising by three to four millimeters (0.10 to 0.15 inches) a year, but the pace has picked up by about 30 percent over the last decade. It could accelerate even more as continent-sized ice blocs near the poles continue to shed mass, especially in Antarctica, which Vitousek described as the sea level "wild card." If oceans go up 25 centimeters by mid-century, "flood levels that occur every 50 years in the tropics would be happening every year or more," he said.
Interesting I was just talking to my wife about how with the rise of the ocean you could/would have to turn Manhattan into a new Venice, and with our apartment being on the 10th floor, we may be sitting on some water-level real estate. The worst part is it's only half a joke and a real future issue to deal with, just look at what happened with the subways during the last major storm, it doesn't take much of a rise to sink the city.
Although climate change (specifically global warming) is happening (unless you deny the laws of chemistry and physics), it's probably too late to realistically do anything about it. The real problem isn't the warming, it's the positive feedback -- warmer air holds more water vapor which is also a greenhouse gas, warmer temperatures melt the polar ice packs exposing darker ground/water, warmer temperatures unfreeze once frozen swampland which releases methane (and more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2), etc. All these effects feed back into the system pushing the equilibrium temperature of our planet that much higher.
Just like starting a boulder rolling down a hill, the longer you wait to try to stop it, the more momentum it will build up, the harder it will be to stop it. Even if we magically eliminated all the CO2 emissions from industry, transportation, and the like tomorrow, we still have to deal with the existing CO2 in the system to have any hope of even slowing down the current warming.
Add to all of the above that the CO2 currently in the system is so diffused (roughly 400 parts per million) that I don't know of any human technology that could possibly make a dent in the CO2 concentrations on a global atmospheric scale. So not only are we unable to retard the flow of CO2 into the system, we are technically unable to do anything significant with the CO2 that is already in the system.
At this point, the boulder has been rolling down the hill long enough that it isn't possible to stop it; so, the only thing to do is give up and console ourselves with the notion that by the time the really catastrophic things come to pass most of us will be dead and buried and unaffected by the results anyway ;)
I'm sure that millenials will be able to work it out -- lol.
"Here's Michael Mann's (The Hockey Stick guy) prediction that the West Side Highway would be under water by now"
The (demented) Hockey Stick is indeed Mann's. The Westside Highway prediction was James Hansen in 1988 and he still has a decade to go before it is shown to be false. I'm guessing that Hansen is probably beginning to think he may have gotten that one more than a bit wrong.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
a few inches of sea level rise in the next 50 years clearly isn't going to do all that much additional harm.
There are people in Miami (and other Florida coastal cities), who beg to differ. And I'm not talking boo-hoo poor little rich people losing some of their exclusive ocean view. Low-lying lower-class neighborhoods are already suffering and city officials are having to deal with the thorny issue of raising funds to buy them out. Another unexpected consequence is that clearances on bridges are being shortened, and boating brings in a lot of money in Florida.
Jacksonville has an upscale neighborhood that also serves as a major traffic connector to downtown. Several years back they had to put pumps in the streets because when the Autumn deluges begin and the Spring High Tide coincides, the St Johns River flows backwards up the storm drains. It has not only caused considerable distress to local merchants, the streets became impassible (to say nothing of the road damage).
Personally, I'm just waiting for the first incursions on Mar-A-Lago. I expect Trump to change his position on climate really fast once that happens. And I'm sure that more than one of the Trump Towers around the world is fairly close to sea level.
Look at depth charts of the Florida Keys and you'll notice that a 1-foot fluctuation in sea level would greatly increase or decrease the land area down there. Whole islands would appear or disappear.
Also it should not noted that not all consequences of rising seas roll in from the coast lines. Florida is largely porous limestone rock. It gets its water from aquifers in that rock, and sea water can and does intrude into that rock. Orlando, which is one of the most land-locked cities in the entire state has been fighting for decades with Brevard County for water resources and the last thing they want is for any of that water to turn brinier. Tampa Bay has already seen shortages because they pipe in water from inland sources but have seen pipe failures. And the less said about the fragile state of fresh water in the upscale areas of Fort Myers and Venice, the better.