UCS Study: Low-End Estimate - By 2100, 40% Of Gulf & E. Coast Seaside Cities Chronically Flooded

[hatrack]

This is the low end of estimates, btw, not the worst-case.

They call it “sunny day” or “nuisance” flooding: days when it doesn’t rain and there’s no extreme weather, but streets in coastal areas become impassable all the same because an extra high tide comes on top of an already rising ocean. Across the country, more and more cities are experiencing these high tidal events and–if nothing is done to avert climate change–hundreds more could join the ranks of Miami Beach, Charleston, and Annapolis in the coming years.

A newly published report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which campaigns for action on global warming, calculates just how many. By 2035, it says 170 communities could see “chronic flooding” every two weeks, or more frequently, under an “intermediate” climate scenario. By 2060, it forecasts the same for 270 communities, with at least 40% of their land under water 26 or more times a year.

“The analysis shows the sheer number of communities up and down our coasts that will be coping with chronic inundation,” Shana Udvardy, one of the authors of the study, tells Fast Company. “It’s a clarion call for responses to sea level rise within local, state, and federal governments and particularly for a federal response to this ballooning challenge.”

EDIT

Under the less serious scenario, the affected areas include some of the country’s most popular holiday-home destinations, including the Jersey Shore, North Carolina’s Pamlico Sound, southern Louisiana, and Maryland’s Eastern Shore. By 2100, up to 490 communities—or 40% of all East and Gulf Coast oceanfront communities—will be chronically inundated, the study says. (See the detailed map here for other affected towns and cities.) Miami Beach–often seen as ground zero for sunny-day flooding–doesn’t yet cross the threshold for chronic inundation. But it is a poster child for flood adaptation. It plans to spend at least $400 million on raising its roads and installing new pump infrastructure. Other parts of the state aren’t so proactive. Florida governor Rick Scott has denied climate science and outlawed the use of the term “climate change” in official communication.

EDIT

https://www.fastcompany.com/40440176/these-are-the-places-in-the-u-s-will-be-soaked-by-climate-change-first

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Wonder if they added hurricanes into their predictions.

Always good to have someone like Rick Scott in charge of "the gateway to hurricanes" state.

Fla. gets a LOT of storms, monsoon rains, and if hurricane season ever returns to the Gulf, the storm surges alone with be damaging.