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hatrack

(59,436 posts)
Thu May 28, 2020, 08:13 PM May 2020

Florida Keys Facing At Least 3' Of Sea Level Rise By 2100: "There's A Hard Truth Here"

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More here from my interview with Andrea Dutton in December, at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.


EDIT

Projections point to more than three feet of sea-level rise by 2100, posing deep challenges for one of the U.S.’s most iconic tourist sites – the Florida Keys, where in many places residences, highways, and infrastructure are at less than three feet. Moreover, those 2100 projections “almost give you a false sense of complacency,” cautions scientist and 2019 MacArthur “genius” fellowship winner Andrea Dutton. She says in this month’s Yale Climate Connections “This Is Not Cool” video that extreme storms affecting the Keys will occur “with increasing frequency as you approach 2100,” and well before that three-foot average rise takes hold.

Dutton expresses concerns that the public may not be “in the right mindset” concerning time projections for rising sea levels. “You can’t just pick up cities and move them,” she says. “There’s going to be some amount of adaptation, there’s going to be some amount of retreat” leading up to the period when that overall three-foot average is, as they say, “the new normal.”

Dutton, for eight years with the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Florida, now continues her research with the University of Wisconsin’s Geoscience Department. “Snow is fun,” she said in a fall 2019 U.W. announcement of her move from sunny Gainesville to often frosty Madison. Explaining to those curious about her move from the Atlantic coast to the Midwest, she said “I look at these sea-level projections all the time. I can see what’s coming, and it’s miserable.”

Dutton is far from alone in expressing concerns about the impacts of sea-level rise for the Florida Keys. For instance, another scientist, Maya Becker, now with Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla California, recalls growing up on Key Biscayne barrier island, just south of Miami Beach. She says she worries that parts could be “completely submerged” in the next 50 or so years.

EDIT

https://climatecrocks.com/2020/05/28/new-video-breaking-bad-news-in-florida-keys/

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Florida Keys Facing At Least 3' Of Sea Level Rise By 2100: "There's A Hard Truth Here" (Original Post) hatrack May 2020 OP
oy...planning a move to Key West in the next year or so... dhill926 May 2020 #1
ummmmm Boomer May 2020 #2
well...we do have a backup plan... dhill926 May 2020 #4
Did you see this? Finishline42 May 2020 #3
I have...thanks... dhill926 May 2020 #5
I have friends in the Keys Boomer May 2020 #6
thanks... dhill926 May 2020 #7

dhill926

(16,234 posts)
1. oy...planning a move to Key West in the next year or so...
Thu May 28, 2020, 09:20 PM
May 2020

actually delayed by the virus. We're in our 60's, but still...worsening storms are a worry...

Boomer

(4,159 posts)
2. ummmmm
Thu May 28, 2020, 11:13 PM
May 2020

If you were in your late 70s I'd say "go for it" because you can just enjoy your last few years. But if you're in your 60s and in good health, you're setting yourself up for climate catastrophes as you age and have less stamina to cope. Ten years from now, for instance, how well will you deal with storm surges, evacuations, or being stranded on the keys?

dhill926

(16,234 posts)
4. well...we do have a backup plan...
Fri May 29, 2020, 10:59 AM
May 2020

as we own a house in Indianapolis. But KW has been a dream since we lived in South Florida during the 80's. We're in very good health...so we'll probably give it a shot. But nothing is a certainty in these times...

Finishline42

(1,091 posts)
3. Did you see this?
Fri May 29, 2020, 10:32 AM
May 2020

This about the Key Largo area last year

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/28/783349974/this-florida-keys-neighborhood-has-been-flooded-for-nearly-3-months

Sea walls don't help one of the problems with the rising sea water - salt water - because of the porous composition of the land.

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