Edward Mendel – Chicago Historical Society
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Sea Level Rise may displace up to 16 million Americans by 2100, according to researchers from the University of Georgia. But the study ignores history, technological progress, and the unreliability of climate models.
Sea level rise projected to displace 13 million in U.S. by 2100
A new study by University of Georgia researchers could help protect more than 13 million American homes that will be threatened by rising sea levels by the end of the century.
It is the first major study to assess the risk from rising seas using year 2100 population forecasts for all 319 coastal counties in the continental U.S. Previous impact assessments use current population figures to assess long-term effects of coastal flooding.
The study is based on analyses by Mathew Hauer for his doctoral work with the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; Deepak Mishra of the UGA department of geography; and Jason Evans, a former UGA faculty member now with Stetson University. It was published March 14 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Based on year 2100 population forecasts, the authors report that a 6-foot sea level rise will expose more than 13 million people to flooding and other hazards from rising seas. Florida faces the most risk, where up to 6 million residents could be affected. One million people each in California and Louisiana also could be impacted.
…
Adaptation strategies are costly, and these are areas of especially rapid population growth, so the longer we wait to implement adaptation measures the more expensive they become,” Hauer said.
Read more: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-policymakers-sea.html
The abstract of the study;
Millions projected to be at risk from sea-level rise in the continental United States
Sea-level rise (SLR) is one of the most apparent climate change stressors facing human society1. Although it is known that many people at present inhabit areas vulnerable to SLR2, 3, few studies have accounted for ongoing population growth when assessing the potential magnitude of future impacts4. Here we address this issue by coupling a small-area population projection with a SLR vulnerability assessment across all United States coastal counties. We find that a 2100 SLR of 0.9 m places a land area projected to house 4.2 million people at risk of inundation, whereas 1.8 m affects 13.1 million people—approximately three times larger than indicated by current populations. These results suggest that the absence of protective measures could lead to US population movements of a magnitude similar to the twentieth century Great Migration of southern African-Americans. Furthermore, our population projection approach can be readily adapted to assess other hazards or to model future per capita economic impacts.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2961.html
Obviously anyone in immediate danger of flooding needs to address the problems they face. But is it really wise to spend large sums now, to protect property against a future rise in sea level, which might never happen?
Sea level rise has not accelerated, as climate models predicted. Until climate models demonstrate reliable predictive skill, it would be unwise to use them as the justification for large expenditures of public money.
For example:
Source: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_us.htm
Even if the predicted sea level rise occurs, every year that preparations are delayed, substantially reduces the real economic cost per capita of action. Our economic, our engineering capabilities are growing geometrically. For example, new construction systems, such as gigantic “concrete printers“, robotic machines which create large continuous structures using scaled up 3d printing technology, are already being prototyped. Such robotic machines will dramatically cut the cost of building sea defences, when they become mainstream.
New York City has been able to keep up with sea level rise since it’s beginnings with simple technology, there is no reason to think future inhabitants won’t be able to.
OK, worst case scenario: a millennium of sea level rise — say 1 meter to exaggerate and make it especially “scary” — over-night. The battery in NY, Miyami, San Fransicko, Lost Angeles, Bahsten all get their legs wet. IOW, the over-crowded, over-populated, over-taxed, over-regulated socialist, power-madness-inflicted dystopias are inconvenienced. What is the down-side?
I’m having posts I make here disappear. It’s happened for a long time which is why I never post here now. Something is wrong.
The spam filter flagged your post on keywords, it appears in this thread once moderators fished it out, but your claim of “It’s happened for a long time ” is unsupported by any other comments linked to your persona before today.
“Claim: Sea Level Rise Could Displace Millions of US Citizens”
And a few million non-citizens 🙂
Quote the abstract
whereas 1.8 m affects 13.1 million people—approximately three times larger than indicated by current populations.
Unquote
So they are saying that knowing the coast will submerge, double the current population will move there and then get displaced.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
University of Georgia.
Sheesh, what would you expect.
Sea level rise is local: it depends on whether the land is rising or falling, and how fast.
The recent (~140 years) linear trend certainly does not follow the Keeling Curve. A straightforward extrapolation would put the mean sea level in 2100 at The Battery (at the seaward tip of Manhattan where the largest number of people would be ‘affected’) about 24 cm (9-1/2 inches) higher than the current sea level – less than a third of the anxiety-producing figure of 0.9 m.
I’m sure people living in areas where sea level is rising at 18mm each year would already be on the move. I can’t imagine where this would be happening though. Here it’s been rising at 1/30 th that rate for the past century.
“These results suggest that the absence of protective measures could lead to US population movements of a magnitude similar to the twentieth century Great Migration of southern African-Americans”
As usual, they do not say what ‘protective measures’ should be undertaken by the government, Are they suggesting that the government build a 6 foot high sea wall around the whole of the country, for what, to most of us is a quite ridiculous scenario? First, they’re talking about what might happen in 100 years time .when none of us knows what the state of the earth will be at that time. Secondly, if it does happen it’s not going to happen overnight, so the change will be imperceptable. Thirdly the laws of evolution will ensure that if it does happen, as they predict, the population will look after themselves by building houses and property on higher ground to suit the situation at the time.(or perhaps they believe that the coastal population will not notice the rising sea and stay put ’till their lights go out)
Another quite pointless exercise from the ever-increasing and outrageously wasted work, time and cost perpetrated by our so called GW academics.
There willl be sea level rise but it is much smaller than the scare stories. Does that mean we do nothing? Like all the “effects’ of global warming that are excalimed we have been working on the mitigation of these things for hundreds of years already. The 1900s saw a 98% reduction of death from natural disasters. The first decade of 2000 has seen another 50% reduction of death from natural disasters (in 10 years 50% reduction) We are talking 1/100th the death of 1900 now in 2010. We will continue to improve every aspect of our defense against nature worldwide. A lot of the techniques learned and used in the US migrate to the rest of the world as it gets richer meaning that much of the additional gain over the next century would be huge even if all technological development ceased. It is likely by 2100 that ZERO yes ZERO people will die from any natural disaster at all without us spending any more than we do today or anybody spends. With ZERO change in any policy but just continuing with rolling out the improvements over the last century the number of deaths and actual damage will be constantly reduced by drastic amounts.
As the author points outs the adaptation by using new technology we haven’t even imagined could mean zero property damage zero lives lost zero effect from all the storms and droughts or whatever mother nature throws. This is not polyanna. This is clearly factual based on things everybody knows about today.
Yes, people will say but how do you handle rising seas? There are innumerable ways these are handled today from putting buildings on stilts or ilfting them which is a well known and economical practice to building walls and relocation. In the US most sea facing property is considered prime real estate owned by the richest companies and the richest individuals. I bristle at the notion we are supposed to spend vast amounts of money to save these people’s investments 100 years from now. I do not want one tax dollar going to save rich people’s houses or buildings 100 years from now. I fully expect rich people to spend whatever they need to protect, sell their property or do whatever they need to adapt to any sea level rise that happens whether 3 inches or 40 inches.
https://logiclogiclogic.wordpress.com/category/climate-change/