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Sea Level Rise in the SF Bay Area Just Got a Lot More Dire (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: San Francisco Bay Area residents have long been aware of the threat that sea level rise poses to their coastal existence -- but things suddenly look a lot more serious. A new study examines the simultaneous phenomena of rising sea levels and subsiding coastal land, and as Wired reports, the situation is pretty dire. Models that factor in just sea level rise predict that at least 20 square miles could be underwater by 2100. Once you add in subsiding land, that jumps to nearly 50 square miles, and could get as bad as 165 square miles. Or, put another way, by the end of the century, half of the runways and taxiways at San Francisco Airport could be submerged.
The study found that most of the Bay's coastline is sinking at a rate of less than 2 millimeters a year -- and while that may not sound like a lot, the millimeters can add up fast. "You talk to someone about, 'Oh the land is going down a millimeter a year,' and that can be kind of unimpressive," says William Hammond, a researcher at the University of Nevada Reno who studies subsidence (but was not involved in this particular project). "But we know as scientists that these motions, especially if they come from plate tectonics, that they are relentless and they will never stop, at least as long as we're alive on this planet."
The study found that most of the Bay's coastline is sinking at a rate of less than 2 millimeters a year -- and while that may not sound like a lot, the millimeters can add up fast. "You talk to someone about, 'Oh the land is going down a millimeter a year,' and that can be kind of unimpressive," says William Hammond, a researcher at the University of Nevada Reno who studies subsidence (but was not involved in this particular project). "But we know as scientists that these motions, especially if they come from plate tectonics, that they are relentless and they will never stop, at least as long as we're alive on this planet."
"Subsidence is a great driver of our economy." - SF Bay Gondoliers Association
And we will get the Water to Pay for it!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you look at the base data from the study, you can find the images for projected innovation at 2100 - it's not that much, mostly down at the end of the bay. Considering we are talking about nearly a hundred years for this change to occur there is a LOT of time to adapt - either by raising the land at risk (we are talking about just a meter of sea level change at worst in the most likely scenario), or building seawalls at the end of the bay the way the Netherlands has done.
San Francisco itself, is of course quite hilly as anyone who has ever visited knows, and is hardly impacted at all.
One final flaw in this study is the reoccurring flaw, they present a doomsday scenario that is "if nothing is done". But they totally do not account for the inevitable shift to solar/electric for power and transportation that will increase dramatically in the coming decades. This shifts all of the predictions to the low end in reality as the most likely scenario, by quite a lot in fact.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How will rising sea levels kill millions? These changes don't happen overnight and can be countered with dykes and pumps. However, increased temperatures increase storm frequency and intensity and these may lead to much larger storm surges. This is what may kill millions. Rising sea level change is just a drop in the bucket in comparison.
Also, how will you 'solve' climate change? Do you really think reducing CO2 output will be enough? I live in the Netherlands, we have been building massive fortifications against storm surges for the past 50 years. I suggest other countries that are at risk will do the same. Betting on magically solving climate change (which may or may not be possible) might work, but increased water barriers will definitely work.
How will rising sea levels kill millions? ... However, increased temperatures increase storm frequency and intensity and these may lead to much larger storm surges. This is what may kill millions.
I think you answered your own question.
Do you really think reducing CO2 output will be enough?
No I do not. 30 year ago it could have been enough, but there is too much CO2/Methane/etc in the atmosphere already. We are going to have to cut greenhouse gasses significantly, and we will have to build fortifications at every costal city. Even that will not be enough.
You always gotta know when to get out of the market and take your max profit.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The American way of life is doomed. It cannot continue as it is. We've passed the tipping point of recovery.
One side here wants to do everything we can to mitigate the problems associated with the change and make as painless as possible.
The other side just ignores it, calls it a Liberal Hoax or Chinese Hoax, thinks if there is a problem but so what it's natural and Jesus will save us. In the meantime life and business as usual. The shock they will experience will devastate them.
Plan for the worst; hope for the best - Winston Churchill.
How will rising sea levels kill millions?
Displacement of people, mostly. Refugees tend to die at a much higher rate than the overall population.
Also, how will you 'solve' climate change? Do you really think reducing CO2 output will be enough?
It will reduce the total sea rise, thus making the problem smaller.
Betting on magically solving climate change (which may or may not be possible) might work, but increased water barriers will definitely work.
I don't think you quite grasp the scale of this issue for larger countries, and the inability to buy dykes and pumps for poor countries. The US would need more concrete than has ever been produced. Making concrete produces a lot of CO2, so producing the unprecedented quantities of concrete will help ensure those structures are ineffective.
[Scientific illiteracy] 1 molecule of CO2 [...] is somehow generating 2500c of heat [More scientific illiteracy]
Well, the CO2 is generating, to a very good approximation, no heat at all. The heat is coming from the sun (that hot ball of hydrogen doing nuclear fusion 150 million kilometres away). The CO2 is just slowing down the re-radiation of heat from the Earth surface into space.
What is "c"? Probably not the speed of light in this context?
Stephan
SFO airport is indeed at sea level-- it's right on the bay.
Don't worry . . . Über Swim will still be able to service the submerged airport.
But you can build runways up if you need to; it's not hard.
Who needs runways, when you can use Ground Effect . . . ?
Russia is already prepared to service the Aqua-Airport:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If you believe sea levels will rise, sell now. Problem solved. But I expect you want someone else to solve the problem for you by imposing tyrannical restrictions on those people.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
SF is about dressing in layers. At night it's cold and windy, in the morning it is cool and foggy, and in the afternoon it can be mild and pleasant.
I prefer the weather in San Jose-Santa Clara, and the massively lower crime rate. (well, I suppose the white collar crime rate is high in Silicon Valley)
P.S. SFO isn't even in SF. It's like 3 cities away.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Claiming that land plant life will benefit from rising CO2 levels isn't exactly substantiated by experiments. It's also not exactly refuted.
The plants grow more vigorously, but have a harder time producing proteins, and experience some additional trouble reproducing. This, of course, varies by species, but it's "generally true" among the particular species tested (generally important agricultural plants). And this is when other conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.) are held constant...which, of course won't happen. So the results don't exactly reflect what should be expected, because they only investigated variation in one variable.
Now among sea life there will be problems among those with enzymes that depend on, e.g., calcium ions reacting in a particular way. In general, any enzyme that is sensitive to a change in pH will experience a change in activity, and this is almost always to the detriment of the organism that has evolved to use it. So far it looks like jellyfish will do well, and some fish will do well, but others will experience problems. And, of course, any animal that depends on precipitating Calcium will experience problems, including all shell-fish. I haven't heard of many detailed studies, but the basis of the problem generally is at the molecular level, so expect generalized difficulties in survival, with occasional species benefiting. (All animals evolved to fit the circumstances experienced by their ancestors...plants too.) The basic problem can be expressed as "it's going to take more energy to drive the reactions in the way the bodies expect them to go...or, occasionally, the current reaction will overdrive in the changed environment.)
P.S.: About plants on land: The grow faster, but they are weaker, and more likely to break under environmental stresses, say rain or a heavy wind. And, as I said, they are lower in protein. So every herbivore is going to be switching to a diet high in carbohydrates. So they'll need to eat more to get sufficient protein. People have already demonstrated that this is survivable is you can get enough food, but they've also demonstrated that it's rather unhealthy.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Plankton is not terribly affected. It might lead to a few blooms and anoxic zones, but overall it'll be doing fine.
What's going to be affected are corals and species that use calcium exoskeletons, like shrimp. Corals are also badly affected by rising sea water temperature, causing coral reef collapses and the associated loss of habitat. This will propagate up the food chain, so there's going to be less fish and sea mammals.
That will come down to what works cheapest in the shockingly poor rural areas of India and China.
I've been to really poor rural villages (like village uses a single well for water poor) in China and already see a lot of solar panels, also electric scooters. Because what ends up being really cheap is something you never have to travel to fuel.. a poor village is willing to wait a long time for chargers to charge up whatever.
In the end solar is by far the cheapest path for rural areas and electric motors are way easier to manufacture than combustion engines.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, I'm going to have to side with the GP here, on a number of points:
Netherlands
Length of Coastline - 1,914 km
GDP - $770 billion
GDP / km of Coastline - $402 million / km
USA
Length of Coastline - 133,312 km
GDP - $18.57 trillion
GDP / km of Coastline - $139 million / km
So, firstly, the cost to build dykes around the coast of the US would be, proportionally, about 3 times as expensive for them as it is for the Netherlands. Secondly, close to 2 orders of magnitude (well 70 times) more dykes would be required. Thirdly, you keep going on about storm surge being more pertinent than sea level rise, and while technically you're correct here the effects happen to be cumulative.
In fact, in addition to being cumulative, since storm surge is driven by storms (duh) and storms derive their strength from sea temperatures as sea level rises due to warming so to does the size of the storm surge.
I can't really be bothered to go deeply into the topic of materials, as I'm hungry, but again, unless you want to incur unsustainable upkeep costs for those dykes concrete is pretty much the only long term option available - and even then the upkeep will be merely astronomical. And, like the GP says, producing that quantity of concrete, if there's even enough of the right type of sand to make it all, would only exacerbate the problem.
His question is legitimate.
I don't see any question in the AC's comment, just a lot of statements that make no scientific sense at all.
CO2 absorption of IR comes no where close to explaining global warming, as is well known.
Your statement is unspecific enough to have no clear semantics. No, the direct effect off the CO2 increase does not fully explain the observed global warming. But then nobody except maybe some builders of straw men claims that. Arrhenius had identified the major feedbacks more than a century ago. We do have good explanations for the temperature increase, and anthropogenic influences, primary CO2 emissions, are indeed the root cause of the observed warming, and our best estimate is that they explain all the warming.
Perhaps you don't know enough to answer his questions
Maybe I don't know enough. We can all fall prey to the Dunning–Kruger effect. But in this case, again, there were no questions.
Stephan