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Tuesday, December 20th, 2016

New Sea-Level Rise Projection Raises Threat to World’s Coasts

Author:     Kacey Deamer
Source:     Live Science
Publication Date:     December 15, 2016 07:41am ET
 Link: New Sea-Level Rise Projection Raises Threat to World’s Coasts
Stephan:   Sea rise is becoming an increasing concern to coastal towns and cities. Consider the reports opening sentence, "About one-quarter of the world's population lives in coastal areas that will be unlivable by the year 2100 because of rising sea levels, researchers say. " Think about what that means in terms of migrations. Think about what it means in terms of seaport, corporate, civic, and residential property; what each of those crashes represent. The effect on individual and social wellbeing, with and without preparation and planning. Given the appointments in the incoming administration, and the quality of the Congress it seems to me almost assured that except at the local level and in some Blue states, particularly California, we are about to lose four precious years for preparation and remediation. Civic things take a long time to come together, and we can ill afford that loss.

Heavy waves caused by Hurricane Matthew battered boat docks in Cocoa Beach, Florida, on Oct. 7, 2016.
Credit: Mark Wilson

SAN FRANCISCO — About one-quarter of the world’s population lives in coastal areas that will be unlivable by the year 2100 because of rising sea levels, researchers say. (emphasis added)

In a special issue of the journal Earth’s Future, coastal scientists and engineers detailed projections for sea-level rise for the year 2100, and described their model Monday (Dec. 12) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Sea-level rise is a global phenomenon, with more than 130 cities with populations of 1 million people or more along vulnerable coasts, said Robert Nicholls, a professor of coastal engineering at the University of Southampton in the U.K. [Images of Melt: Earth’s Vanishing Ice]

“To really understand how this might be impacted by sea-level rise, or other kinds of change, we need to understand all of the different scales and how they interact,” Nicholls said. “That’s what we’ve been doing in this big project.”

The Earth’s […]

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1 Comment

  1. Robert Rouse on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 10:20 am

    When the price of Malibu beach front property starts dropping we will know that the ocean has risen or the radiation from Fukushima has become detectable.