Climate study predicts a watery future for New York, Boston and Miami

[muriel_volestrangler]

More than 1,700 American cities and towns – including Boston, New York, and Miami – will have significant populations living below the high-water mark by the end of this century, a new climate change study has found.

Those 1,700 towns are locked into a watery future by greenhouse gas emissions already built up in the atmosphere, the analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday found. For nearly 80 of those cities, the watery future would come much sooner, within the next decade.

"Even if we could just stop global emissions tomorrow on a dime, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Gardens, Hoboken, New Jersey will be under sea level," said Benjamin Strauss, a researcher at Climate Central, and author of the paper. But dramatic cuts in emissions – much greater than Barack Obama and other world leaders have so far agreed – could save nearly 1,000 of those towns, by averting the sea-level rise, the study fund.
...
Those 1,700 cities would have 25% of their populations living below the high-water mark by 2100. Some 79 cities and towns with a combined population of 835,000 would be staring down those waters by 2023. About half of the population of Fort Lauderdale, Hoboken, and Palm Beach, would be living below the high tide line by 2023.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/29/climate-new-york-boston-miami-sea-level

[hollysmom]

1. I believe in a strategic fall back,

Yes, I had a trailer at the beach, But I think temporary housing is a better idea than raised permanent housing, at the right time, move it inland and seal the water and sewer lines. Oddly, they closed out trailer park and are replacing it with condos, even though my trailer was fine, I had to have it demolished because I could not find a buyer for it by the eviction date (given 3 weeks).

I think Miami and Palm Beach is to hard to save, fall back. NYC parts should fall back, parts should be diked.
Louisiana is going to be hard, it is already below sea level. Hoboken has flooded since the 60's, I don't know why they keep building expensive condos there.

[MADem]

2. Maybe we could turn some of these joints into American Venices!

Canals and boats....yeah, that's the ticket!

I may end up with beachfront property before I bite the bullet!

[hollysmom]

3. Well, if you want to give up the subway system, it would work for NYC.

Might make crime more difficult, you would not have to kill someone when they run away, just sink their boat.

I went to Venice about 20 years ago and got caught in a Nor'easter there, the streets of Venice were flooded, you had to step over the sandbags to get into restaurants and many places were closed moving stuff off the ground. I toured the big church there in rain boots as we waded through the water in the church, outside was not handicap accessible, they had us walking on planks on 2 X 4's . Some people tried to push us off the planks so the VIP's could have lots of room.

I wouldn't wish that on any town.

[MADem]

6. They might want to look at monsoon countries, and how they handle "extreme water."

Poor Venice is actually sinking, the pilings holding it up are heading south. Pretty place in fair weather, though...

[dipsydoodle]

4. Shouldn't too much problem in picking suitable areas.

Manhatten comes to mind. I remember scrolling across there on Google Earth out of curiousity and found a few places at 19' above sea level.

[OnlinePoker]

5. What an absolute crock.

From the article: "The study drew on current research on sea-level rise, now growing at 1ft per decade."

Exactly where are sea levels rising by a foot a decade? The University of Colorado has the rise at 3.2 mm/yr plus or minus 0.4. Even taking the high level of 3.6 mm, that's only 3.6 cm over a decade...1.44 inches in a decade.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. They've changed the article; it's about the 'locked-in' rise

it now reads:

The survey does not specify a date by which these cities, or parts of them, would actually fall under water. Instead, it specifies a "locked-in" date, by which time a future under water would be certain – a point of no return.

Because of the inertia built into the climate system, even if all carbon emissions stopped immediately, it would take some time for the related global temperature rises to ease off. That means the fate of some cities is already sealed, the study says.
...
A recent study, also published in PNAS by the climate scientist Anders Levermann found each 1C rise in atmospheric warming would lead eventually to 2.3m of sea-level rise. The latest study takes those figures, and factors in the current rate of carbon emissions, as well as the best estimate of global temperature sensitivity to pollution.

And, at the bottom:

This article was amended on 29 July 2013 to correct a mischaracterisation of the study. The original article stated that 1,700 American cities would be under sea level by 2100. In fact, the analysis states that these locations, or at least part of them would be "locked in" to a future below high-tide levels, which would come at an unspecified later date.

2.3m is 7.5 feet; so locking in 1 foot of rise per decade would be a temperature rise of 1/7.5, or about 0.13C per decade. That is quite possible. But the Guardian article definitely did need rewriting (unfortunately, the PNAS paper doesn't even seem to make an abstract available for free).