The Siege of Miami | Hacker News Reader

The Siege of Miami

newyorker.com

I'd like to check this statement from the article: "'Many geologists, we’re looking at the possibility of a ten-to-thirty-foot range [of sea-level rise] by the end of the century,' he told me." I have not seen any published figure that high.

I've actually been rather surprised at how LOW many predictions of sea-level rise are for the century ending in the year 2100. The United States Environmental Protection Agency writes,[1] "Since 1870, global sea level has risen by about 7.5 inches. Estimates of future sea level rise vary for different regions, but global sea level for the next century is expected to rise at a greater rate than during the past 50 years. Studies project global sea level to rise by another 1 to 4 feet by 2100, with an uncertainty range of 0.66 to 6.6 feet." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change document on sea level rise[2] projects a lot of uncertainty, but doesn't seem to predict such major changes in sea level.

[1] http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/future.html#sealev...

[2] https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/cop19/3_gregory13sbsta.pdf

I think you have a good point about the generally-accepted ranges for sea level rise being smaller than the figure Wanless mentions.

The thing that has people worried is that the mass losses from glaciers are large, not well-accounted for, and they could accelerate. (The sea level rise from volume increases due to temperature rise of the oceans are much smaller and much easier to account for.)

Looking carefully at the IPCC summary (your [2]), it seems that 1m is the current top of the likely range for rise by 2100, even including possible loss of Greenland and the Antarctic glaciers.

Here's a sample of the reactions to a recent, high-profile paper that put forward a 3m rise by 2100: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150721-james-hans...

The fundamental problem is that iceberg collapse usually follows an exponential model, but as with all exponential formulas, a small change in the constants yields humongous differences in the long run.

I ride my bike around Fort Lauderdale 25 miles north of Miami. Sometimes I'm riding through 1/2 foot of water in the one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the United States. These people are underwater. They deny that it is going to get worse and they deny that it caused by humans. All new builds require being elevated several feet but I don't think it is going to help. I would never purchase a house here.

Given the hurricanes and flooding, it amazes me that insurance companies (and the government) continue to cover people living in such places...

See also Rolling Stone's "Goodbye, Miami" http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-mi...

There's also the issue of Floridians pumping fresh water out of a very porous aquifer that then fills with salt water and erodes the bedrock even more. Most of Florida is sinking.

It's unfortunate to see that denial works even at this stage of economic impact.

If this happens during a high tide... what happens when a storm comes? I'm not talking about 10+ feet from a hurricane... just a moderate gale should produce a couple feet on top of high tide, and wouldn't that just be the end of things?

I remember having the same general thought when I was in Miami beach...

Exactly right. Very little is at risk from rising sea level at high tide. Places like this are at some risk during smaller storms, because they're so close to the new mean. However, a whole lot is at risk from hurricane storm surges. The change in mean high tide is not the important part of the story, it's the change in extreme events.

The atmosphere is like any other system of waves -- increase the energy in the system, and you increase the amplitude (the frequency being largely limited by the shape/harmonics of the Earth). So, big surprise that we'll expect more extreme events with climate change. Warm ocean water is the fuel for tropical cyclones, so risk in these low-lying areas can only get worse.

In Miami and Fort Lauderdale the high tides were pretty dramatic around the time of the blood moon, but in terms of tide that was a phenomenon, I still don't think the tide has returned to normal since the blood moon but its definitely in a process of returning to normal.

As to rain, it usually will rain daily during wet season, yet "flooding" occurs maybe a dozen times over the year when storms have significant rainfall, and this is nothing new and so in my opinion not related to sea level rise. My opinion is "flooding" from rain is isolated to places with bad drainage, for example its more likely to happen miles inland in a place like Kendall more so than Brickell which is right on the Bay, or even more locally where one street may have flooding but the very next one doesn't.

So, basically, we should restructure our entire economy so some multi-millionaire's luxury vehicle and lawn won't flood on an island?

Or ... spend hundreds of billions to save a wealthy municipality hundreds of millions?

It's one thing when Miami Beach gets flooded. As you said, it's a small wealthy suburb, and it can afford to protect itself against rising sea levels. On the other hand, the entire country of Bangladesh isn't much farther out of the water than Miami Beach. If you think the instability in Syria is bad now, what will happen when a country with literally ten times as many people becomes uninhabitable?

Syria is bad because of their location, and the interest of major powers. Unfortunately, unless China and/or India take an interest, Bangladesh lacks the money or military power to do anything to disrupt the rest of the World. We can sit back and ignore them dying, and I'm afraid that's what we'll do.

Can't the people migrate or try to? That's a large part of what forced the Syrian issue.

It's going to suck for India. Otherwise they're kind of boxed in by the south-east Asian jungles and the Himalayas.

Syria is bad because of cultural and political issues mainly.

That's a good point, sincerely.

This is astonishingly narrow focussed. Obviously sea level rise will affect more than Miami.

> So, basically, we should restructure our entire economy so some multi-millionaire's luxury vehicle and lawn won't flood on an island?

The economy will restructure itself and the area will depopulate. The article mentions the role of banks and insurers. Almost nobody can afford to buy a home without a mortgage or to self-insure.

Already, many Florida homeowners have only one option for homeowner's insurance: the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, which is a non-profit "insurer of last resort". There is no profit in insuring the Florida coasts.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Property_Insurance_Co...

As the article says, this is a much bigger problem than just Miami.

> Globally, it’s estimated that a hundred million people live within three feet of mean high tide and another hundred million or so live within six feet of it. Hundreds of millions more live in areas likely to be affected by increasingly destructive storm surges.

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