Global Warming And Flooding

[marcusmarcusrc]

Investigate what portion of your city will be underwater with different quantities of sea level rise at this Google Map plus NASA elevation site!

For reference: our model predicts 1 to 3 feet of sea level rise in the next century, not taking into account Greenland or Antarctica (whose net 21st contributions are often assumed to be near zero, though recent studies indicate they may be melting faster than previously assumed. But still, I would be surprised if they added more than another foot to sea level rise on the century time scale).

Of course, on the multiple century time scale, Greenland and Antarctica may be expected to contribute more on the order of 6 to 20 meters of sea level rise. At which point, much of Boston is under water... so my recommendation is to not buy waterfront property as a long term investment!

Comments

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Okay, you have me. I'm mostly not worried about the Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves, much. In fact, a couple days ago I wrote a sentence in my thesis to the effect that it is fairly easy to adapt to any foreseeable climate impact, even ice shelf collapse... as long as said climate change occurs across a long enough time period. What the appropriate ratio of impact to time period is, I don't know. I think 10m of sea level rise 200 years from now, say, would still be fairly disastrous. There are just too many major cities built on the coast. The same 10m over a 1000 years, well, *shrug*. Things would move slowly inland over time.

But as far as my own property purchases (were I to be purchasing property) - I probably wouldn't buy anything on a beach. Not so much because I think that the sea level will rise to engulf the building, but rather that anything that is almost in range of a "100 year storm surge" now will probably hit in the next couple decades. I'll also probably try to avoid anything within a couple houses of the ocean anywhere in the SouthEast, where the land rises slowly and where tropical storms are frequent. Most things in the Boston area are probably just fine.