PNAS Study; 14.5" Sea Level Rise For New Orleans By 2040, 6.5' By 2100
Just when you think the news about sea level rise couldn’t get much worse for New Orleans, it has. According to a study released this month, the city will experience one of the highest increases in sea level among 138 coastal cities around the planet because of its location on the northern Gulf of Mexico.
New Orleans could see as much as 14.5 inches of sea level rise by 2040, and 6.5 feet by 2100 if the world doesn’t act quickly to lower greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of global warming.
The populated parts of the city, of course, are protected by levees rising to about 22 feet. The increase would be evident outside the levees, such as the land bridge between New Orleans and St. Tammany Parish, and coastal communities to the south and west. Those projections do not include subsidence, which is a serious problem for New Orleans. Coastal Louisiana, built on sediment-starved deltas of the Mississippi River, is sinking at one of the fastest rates of any coastal landscape in the world.
Ed. - emphasis added
The paper, “Coastal sea level rise with warming above 2° C,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s aimed at giving policymakers a more accurate assessment of local risks posed by sea level rise. Researchers ran more than 5,000 computer simulations to project sea level rise for cities under three levels of emissions.
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http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/1426159339294686640
