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Sunday, January 18th, 2015

U.S. Cities Lag in Race against Rising Seas

Author:     Brittany Patterson
Source:     Scientific American/Climate Wire
Publication Date:     January 15, 2015
 Link: U.S. Cities Lag in Race against Rising Seas
Stephan:   This is an excellent assessment, stripped of hysteria and grounded in facts, of the municipal response in the U.S. from communities facing sea rise. One has to begin acknowledging that we in the U.S. are far behind other developed nations in dealing with climate change, particularly its effects on water.  Coastal towns and cities over the next 20 years are going to face a different world, as this report describes. Federal politics may live in the twee world of Washington, where the majority political party denies human mediated climate change exists. But localities get flooded, and have to respond. Infrastructure building or restructuring is a process measured in years, sometimes decades.We need to stop funding wars and start funding what is needed to accommodate this new world.  
In just a few decades, most U.S. coastal regions are likely to experience at least 30 days of nuisance flooding every year. Credit: Flickr

In just a few decades, most U.S. coastal regions are likely to experience at least 30 days of nuisance flooding every year.
Credit: Flickr

In December, residents in Marin, a county in the northern part of the San Francisco Bay Area nestled across from the Golden Gate Bridge, woke up to find that some of their roadways, docks and parking lots were underwater.

Unlike in past years, when the king tides—unusually high tides that occur when the sun and moon are closer to the Earth—were accompanied by stormy weather, residents this year were faced with just some minor flooding.

But more and more, parts of California are seeing an increase in such flooding, said Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Griggs is among the scientists who sat on a legislative committee to examine how rising sea levels will affect the California economy. He said in the last four years California has shifted from thinking […]

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