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from the a-rising-tide-lifts-all-boats-but-not-so-good-for-property dept.
Michael Mishak writes that there are few places in the nation more vulnerable to rising sea levels than low-lying South Florida, a tourist and retirement mecca built on drained swampland. Yet as other coastal states and the Obama administration take aggressive measures to battle the effects of global warming, Florida's top Republican politicians are challenging the science and balking at government fixes. In Miami Beach the concern is palpable. On a recent afternoon, local businessman Scott McKenzie pulled out his iPad and flipped through photos from a 2009 storm. In one, two women kayak through knee-high water in the center of town. "This is not a future problem. It's a current problem," says Leonard Berry, a contributing author of the National Climate Assessment, which found that sea levels have risen about 8 inches in the past century. By one regional assessment, the waters off South Florida could rise another 2 feet by 2060, a scenario that would overwhelm the region's aging drainage system and taint its sources of drinking water. "It's getting to the point where some properties being bought today will probably not be able to be sold at the end of a 30-year mortgage," says Harold Wanless. "You would think responsible leaders and responsible governments would take that as a wake-up call."
Gov. Rick Scott, who is running for re-election, has worked with the Republican-controlled Legislature to dismantle Florida's fledgling climate change initiatives that were put into place by his predecessor and current opponent, Democrat Charlie Crist. "I'm not a scientist," says Scott when asked about anthropogenic global warming during a stop in Miami. Meanwhile, Miami Beach is bracing for another season of punishing tides. "We're suffering while everyone is arguing man-made or natural," says Christine Florez, president of the West Avenue Corridor Neighborhood Association. "We should be working together to find solutions so people don't feel like they've been left on a log drifting out to sea."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @06:16PM
The source of the intensity of tropical storms is the amount of heat in the ocean.
With each passing year, that energy goes up.
(Sandy got to be over 1000 miles across, [nasa.gov] concurently covering 16 states (and parts of 4 others), and didn't peter out until it was in Canada.)
The hurricane of 1926 [wikipedia.org] (back before they gave them names) kicked the living crap out of Miami and brought an early start to the Great Depression there.
I remember a story about a ship that was off Key Biscayne when the storm hit.
Key Biscayne has an maximum elevation of 3 feet.
The hurricane had a 15 foot storm surge (think tsunami and you won't be far off).
After the storm was over, the ship was on the other side of the island, having floated over top of it.
Mainland Miami has a maximum elevation of 7 feet.
Each year the baseline for sea level goes up and the energy to form storms increases.
Any settlement near the sea better take climate change and the accompanying sea level rise as a serious economic matter.[1]
The ones with gently-sloping beaches especially so; those also in tropical/sub-tropical regions should realize that this is a DEADLY serious matter.
Logic would dictate that these communities would be a militant vanguard in the movement to limit anthropomorphic global climate change.
Man, I despise lamestream media and its efforts to trivialize this topic.
.
[1] It baffles me that insurance companies are still investing in Big Carbon.
-- gewg_