You are here

Sea Level

With More Storms and Rising Seas, Which U.S. Cities Should Be Saved First?

           

Lower Manhattan is vulnerable to flooding from storm surges and sea level rise.  John Taggart for The New York Times

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - High Tide Tax - The Price to Protect Coastal Communities from Rising Seas (27 page .PDF report)

nytimes.com - by Christopher Flavelle - June 19, 2019

As disaster costs keep rising nationwide, a troubling new debate has become urgent: If there’s not enough money to protect every coastal community from the effects of human-caused global warming, how should we decide which ones to save first?

After three years of brutal flooding and hurricanes in the United States, there is growing consensus among policymakers and scientists that coastal areas will require significant spending to ride out future storms and rising sea levels — not in decades, but now and in the very near future. There is also a growing realization that some communities, even sizable ones, will be left behind.

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018)


CLICK HERE - STUDY - Union of Concerned Scientists - Underwater - Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (28 page .PDF document)

ucsusa.org - June 2018

Sea levels are rising. Tides are inching higher. High-tide floods are becoming more frequent and reaching farther inland. And hundreds of US coastal communities will soon face chronic, disruptive flooding that directly affects people's homes, lives, and properties.

Yet property values in most coastal real estate markets do not currently reflect this risk. And most homeowners, communities, and investors are not aware of the financial losses they may soon face.

This analysis looks at what's at risk for US coastal real estate from sea level rise—and the challenges and choices we face now and in the decades to come.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Study of Antarctic Sea Ice Collapse Warns of Potential 10-Foot Sea Rise

           

PACK ICE MELTING IN SPRING IN ANTARCTICA'S WEDDEL SEA. CREDIT: PLANET OBSERVER/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The faster the ocean warms, the faster key Antarctic glaciers will disintegrate.

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979–2017

thinkprogress.org - by Joe Romm - January 15, 2019

A stunning new study on Antarctic sea ice collapse greatly raises the risk of a 10-foot sea level rise this century if President Donald Trump’s climate policies aren’t quickly reversed.

Warming ocean waters drove a 6-fold increase in annual ice mass loss from the Antarctic ice sheet between 1979 and 2017, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It’s been known for a while that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) was unstable and collapsing at an accelerating rate due to global warming. But the new study finds that parts of the vastly larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) are also disintegrating.

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

West Antarctic Ice Melt Poses Unique Threat to U.S.

           

Sea level rise contributions from ice melt in different areas, including Greenland (a), West Antarctica (b), East Antarctica (c) and median of global glaciers (d). Values are ratios of regional sea level change to global mean sea level change. Adapted from Kopp et al. 2015.

axios.com - by Andrew Freedman - June 14, 2018

News of Antarctica's accelerating ice melt garnered worldwide headlines yesterday, as scientists revealed that 3 trillion tons of ice has been lost to the sea since 1992 — mostly from the thawing West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Antarctic Peninsula.

Why it matters: The location of the ice melt is important for determining the future of coastal communities, according to climate scientists. And, due to West Antarctica melting, it turns out that the U.S. coastline will be hit extra hard . . .

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Wildfires Hit Greenland After Record Temperatures

           

This satellite photograph depicts the wildfire raging in Greenland, as seen from space last week. - NASA Earth Observatory

phys.org - August 14, 2017

Police in Greenland warned people to stay away from western areas of the island as wildfires scorched swathes of scrubland . . . 

 . . . Denmark's meteorological service BMI said the island registered its hottest-ever temperature of 24.8 degrees (77 Fahrenheit) on August 10.

Last year was Greenland's hottest on record.

The Danish territory has lost about 4,000 gigatons of ice since 1995, British researchers said in June, making ice melt on the huge island the biggest single contributor to rising sea levels.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

PHOTOS: A 'Massive' Wildfire Is Now Blazing In Greenland
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/08/542305822/photos-a-massive-wildfire-is-now-blazing-in-greenland

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Climate Report: Hottest Year, Highest Greenhouse Gas Marks, Record Sea Levels

CLICK HERE - American Meteorological Society - State of the Climate in 2016 - Special Supplement to the - Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society - Vol. 98, No. 8, August 2017 - (298 page .PDF report)

cnn.com - by Steve Almasy - August 10, 2017

The records highlighted in the "State of the Climate in 2016" report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sound ominous.

• Global land surface temperatures last year were highest in 137 years of record keeping.

• Sea surface temperatures were also at their highest.

• Sea levels were at record highs in the 24 years that satellite record keeping has been used.

• Greenhouse gas marks rose faster than any year and carbon dioxide readings were above a 400 parts per million average for the year for the first time.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ALSO SEE RELATED INFORMATION WITHIN THE LINKS BELOW:

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Higher Seas to Flood Dozens of US Cities, Study Says; Is Yours One of Them?

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Union of Concerned Scientists - When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of US Coastal Communities (2017)

cnn.com - by Jennifer Gray - July 12, 2017

For the past several years, scientists have been trying to get people to wake up to the dangers that lie ahead in rising seas due to climate change. A comprehensive list now names hundreds of US cities, large and small, that may not make it through the next 20, 50 or 80 years due to sea level rise . . .

 . . . If you live along the coast, your city could be one of them -- meaning you could be part of the last generation to call it home.

"This research hones in on exactly how sea level rise is hitting us first. The number of people experiencing chronic floods will grow much more quickly than sea level itself," Benjamin Strauss, Vice President for Sea Level and Climate Impacts at Climate Central said in reaction to this study.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Rising Seas to Force Billions from Home

           

weather.com - by Pam Wright - June 28, 2017

CLICK HERE - VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Impediments to inland resettlement under conditions of accelerated sea level rise

An estimated 2 billion people will be displaced from their homes by 2100 due to climate-driven rising seas, a new study says.

Roughly one-fifth of the world's population may become climate change refugees, according to Cornell University. The majority of those will be people who live on coastlines around the world, including about 2 million in Florida alone.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Cornell University - Rising seas could result in 2 billion refugees by 2100

 

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

When Rising Seas Transform Risk Into Certainty

           

Flooding in North Miami, Florida. A 2013 World Bank study found that Miami is one of the 10 cities most at risk of damage from sea-level rise. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Amplification of flood frequencies with local sea level rise and emerging flood regimes

thebulletin.org - by Dan Drollette Jr. - June 9, 2017

According to a new study published on Wednesday by researchers from Princeton and Rutgers universities, rare floods will soon become the norm for cities like New York, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle, as well as entire states such as Florida and Hawaii. On average, this means a 40-fold increase in the occurence of flood, unless humanity soon cuts back on the amount of carbon we pump into the atmosphere.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Rare US floods to become the norm if emissions aren't cut, study warns

 

 

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Pages

Subscribe to Sea Level
howdy folks