Sea level rise due to climate change eyed as contributing factor in Miami-area building collapse

[Quixote1818]

Yahoo News


David Knowles·Senior Editor
Fri, June 25, 2021, 11:21 AM·3 min read
As the search for survivors of the collapse of a 12-story beachfront condominium in Surfside, Fla., continued on Friday, building experts began looking at the possibility that sea level rise caused by climate change may have contributed to the disaster that has left at least four people dead and 159 missing.

From a geological standpoint, the base of South Florida’s barrier islands is porous limestone. As the oceans encroach on land due to sea level rise and the worsening of so-called king tides, groundwater is pushed up through the limestone, causing flooding. That brackish water, which regularly inundates underground parking garages in South Florida, can potentially lead to the deterioration of building foundations over time.

“Sea level rise does cause potential corrosion and if that was happening, it’s possible it could not handle the weight of the building,” Zhong-Ren Peng, professor and director of the University of Florida’s International Center for Adaptation Planning and Design, told the Palm Beach Post. “I think this could be a wakeup call for coastal developments.”

While it is too early to say whether climate change is to blame for the collapse of the 40-year-old Champlain Towers South, or if it also threatens thousands of similar structures along Florida’s coastline, sea levels rose by 3.9 inches between 2000 and 2017 in nearby Key West, according to a 2019 report by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact.

More: https://news.yahoo.com/sea-level-rise-due-to-climate-change-eyed-as-contributing-factor-in-miami-building-collapse-172145539.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABayo7XD1iTIQwvLJyyt9vMafQLXe0u3wLrC0z-ba4KTzWC4BE81DFqEkmK4geRd8_XUii2isVaZtnibx5JGf884ud8wH_7NiVDP4JvLMgu1NGF2RTBmxvsi7ub7UOwZhYj4LZ02UPF_iR5u1KE6jkdicjDxI4OUyZ4_NgIWt4oy



Supermoon Tide Leaves Octopus Stranded in Parking Garage
The recent lunar event contributed to tidal flooding in Miami, which is becoming a more regular occurrence due to rising sea levels.

BYDELANEY ROSS

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 19, 2016
• 3 MIN READ



The recent supermoon created difficult circumstances for an octopus in Miami, which found itself on the floor of a parking garage as a result of enhanced tidal flooding along the South Florida coast.

The “king tide”—a cyclical effect made more pronounced by the supermoon—likely washed the octopus out of pipes underneath the garage, a marine biologist at the University of Miami told the Miami Herald.

Octopuses prefer cramped, dark spaces, and the marine invertebrates are increasingly drawn to pipes as the rising sea in the Miami area means more of them are now underwater.

Link: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/supermoon-tide-miami-sea-level-octopus-garage

[Raine]

1. Poor octopus, I hope someone saved it. I would be shocked

if climate wasn't a contributor to the building’s collapse.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Quixote.

[DVRacer]

3. I think we may discover the undersea detonation by the Navy

Played a part too the timing is suspicious.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. That was my initial thought. Then I was informed here that I wasn't allowed to speculate on it.

[EYESORE 9001]

8. 'Unless yer an engineer, yer not qualified to hold an opinion'

As if engineers didn’t design those condos and sign off on their construction in a dicey location in the first place.

[sop]

13. Yeah, I don't buy that "you can't have an opinion because you're not an expert" stuff.

[sop]

5. Most of the underground parking garages in condominiums along the ocean in South Florida

require sump pumps to prevent flooding from rising sea water levels. Even with the sump pumps, concrete supports are continually exposed to salt water, causing concrete spalling; when steel reinforcing rods embedded within the concrete corrode, causing the concrete to crack and weaken.

[PortTack]

6. It just makes sense.

[Takket]

7. it's a good theory but proper engineering analysis

is needed for the full picture. most likely it is a combination of several contributing factors. once recovery efforts have concluded they will cut into the foundation and structural steel and begin piecing together the clues.

[Quixote1818]

9. For sure, but if it is sea level rise there is going to be a lot of pressure by Florida power

brokers to cover it up. That gets out and it could really hurt Florida's real estate market. So I wonder if we will ever get the actual truth.

[hunter]

10. So this is how the end begins...

How many coastal high rises have their concrete foundations soaking in salt water right now?

In some apocalyptic fiction the coastal cities turn into modern versions of Venice as the ground floors and streets are abandoned to the sea and people get around by boat.

But wait, what do you mean these buildings collapse soon after the salt water seeps into their concrete foundations, before the water is even deep enough for a romantic twenty second century gondola ride??? Oh no!

Good bye, Miami.

Maybe Venice lasted so long as it did because its foundations are made of wood pilings driven into the anaerobic muck.

As our coastal cities with feet of fragile concrete will not.

w

[Quixote1818]

11. Older Roman concrete actually gets stronger in sea water

See video. They have structures that have stood in sea water for 2,000 years:

[UTUSN]

12. K&R for, moi said it when nobody did

[BlueWavePsych]

14. Florida sinkholes.