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Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

bloomberg.com

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Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#121

Post by bovermyer »

laverick wrote: post #89
fabricexpert wrote: post #80

This article is kind of infuriating. Just bring the facts up and talk about them, instead of describing people. I think this is one of the more critical parts (along with the stuff about water supply getting contaminated): > Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates…

Isn't Zillow ignoring the immense value created from all those new beachfront properties?

Lex Luthor would like a word with you.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#122

Post by WkndTriathlete »

closeparen wrote: post #51
ryandrake wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we also tax people living in earthquake-prone and tornado-prone areas? How about blizzard-prone areas? Keep going with this and we will run out of places (in the USA) where it’s ok to live. Also, as someone who lived in south Florida, flood insurance is a joke and unavailable near the coast anyway. Nobody expects it to pay out enough in a major catastrophe, including hurricanes and flooding.

Blizzards don’t typically level buildings, and a tornado’s path of destruction is narrow enough that the lucky homeowners can sufficiently subsidize the unlucky ones through insurance. Neither of those risks are comparable to earthquakes and hurricanes/flooding, which can be relied upon to thoroughly destroy huge swaths of cities, regularly.

You mean like blizzards like this: https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Sports/2010/1212/Vikings-Metro... ?

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#123

Post by [deleted] »

leereeves wrote: post #115
fabricexpert wrote: post #80

This article is kind of infuriating. Just bring the facts up and talk about them, instead of describing people. I think this is one of the more critical parts (along with the stuff about water supply getting contaminated): > Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates…

According to NASA [1], global sea levels have been rising at a fairly steady 3.2 millimeters per year since 1993. According to NOAA [2], the "relative sea level trend" in Miami Beach is 2.39 mm/year. At those rates, in 100 years, the sea will have risen about one foot, not six. 1: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/ 2: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/

[deleted]

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#124

Post by erentz »

ctlby wrote: post #29
erentz wrote: post #3

I’ve never understood how the parts of the country most affected by sea level rise have been so vociferously against it being real. When the BP spill happened and they had all the local mayors and politicians crying about the damage to their coast, I couldn’t understand why no one had the cajones to ask them why they cared so much about their coast being damaged now, when they were completely fine with it being gone…

Your premise is incorrect. The parts of the country most affected are the coasts--and they are blue.

If we exclude Alaska then about half the coast encompasses Texas through North Carolina. This is also the part of the US coast that is most low lying and will see the greatest encroachment from rising sea levels.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#126

Post by monetus »

tim333 wrote: post #95

For context the global rate of sea level rise currently seems to be 4cm a decade so you could come back in 10 or 20 years and probably not notice much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

I'd be surprised if the rise sticks to a linear progression. The ice caps are caught in a feedback loop.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#127

Post by simonbarker87 »

bilbo0s wrote: post #110
chollida1 wrote: post #9

Start worrying when the banks stop offering mortgages to people trying to buy property in south beach. I remember when Katrina flooded New Orleans, lots of people were asking why rebuild the city when it almost certainly will flood like that again. And the answer was a simple, do you know how much it would cost to relocate everyone? What does it do to the economy when almost everyones largest asset(their house) is wo…

>I remember when Katrina flooded New Orleans, lots of people were asking why rebuild the city when it almost certainly will flood like that again. And the answer was a simple, do you know how much it would cost to relocate everyone? I was working briefly with Halliburton during the Rita-Katrina time period. I think it might behoove you to take a more holistic look at this issue. I'll try to be visual in my explanatio…

> but the nutritional intake of children in Sub-Saharan Africa would be materially affected.

Sorry for the dumb question but I don’t get the link between New Orleans and African children? I’m in the UK, so may be missing some common US knowledge?

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#128

Post by singularity2001 »

frockington wrote: post #44
christophilus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting map. Any idea why there are down and up arrows intermingled the way they are?

From my understanding the down arrows indicate the coast is expanding. The key at the bottom says the down arrows are negative sea level growth

I read that tide patterns are changing so locally measuring climate sea rise makes no sense yet, as tides superimpose ±8mm

So far you need the global integrate of all changes.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#129

Post by grasshopperpurp »

ryandrake wrote: post #75
jdpedrie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They would get some government assistence with the condition that this was the first and only time that the governmnet would help. We'll see how well that holds up next time those people need assistance. Somehow I don't see any elected politician telling his voters "sorry, we already helped you".

I know people who deliberately don’t save for retirement because they are betting that few people in their generation will have enough to retire on, and the government politically can’t let elderly people mass-die on the street.

Curious - what age group?

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#130

Post by igravious »

beat wrote: post #97
fabricexpert wrote: post #80

This article is kind of infuriating. Just bring the facts up and talk about them, instead of describing people. I think this is one of the more critical parts (along with the stuff about water supply getting contaminated): > Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates…

The article isn't saying Miami will be underwater soon. It's saying that Miami's water supply is at risk, partly due to rising sea levels, partly due to human activity damaging the aquifer (limestone mining, toxic waste). Moreover, six feet of sea level rise isn't going to happen instantaneously. It will take decades. Property will slowly be lost, but people will just move inland (or move away). And a key question is…

> The article isn't saying Miami will be underwater soon.

I beg to differ, it's the first sentence of the title of the article: “Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. […]”

Then there's, “Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates that six feet of sea-level rise would put a quarter of Miami’s homes underwater, rendering $200 billion of real estate worthless.”

I don't know what you're arguing against the GP for. The question is, how are we to figure out how _concerned_ we should be? Clearly one day the good citizens of Miami are not going to be waking up to water lapping at their bedsheets. What timescale are we talking about? Who are Zillow? What options does the city of Miami have? Comparatively speaking is Miami an outlier or a typical case? I think journalists and news outlets do a major disservice to an important topic when they make alarmist headlines and skirt around the practical matters at the heart of articles such as this. The crux of the story, that Miami's freshwater is in peril before Miami's real estate is a valuable story to tell us.

But please spare us the melodramatic, “What nobody knows is when that will happen, or what happens next.”

You mean to say that the people in charge of managing these water systems are standing by dumbfounded and helpless? Maybe we should replace them by people who are able to problem solve in the face of adversity.

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