A report today confirms what I’ve been saying for some time. The earth is warming, the polar ice caps are melting, and the sea level is rising. I’ve often wished I had some beachfront property to sell to the global warming deniers. And those who already own beachfront property … I look forward to someday seeing them up to their knees in water, still trying to say the planet isn’t warming.
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has issued a new report saying many of the nation’s coastal cities are seeing an increase in “nuisance flooding,” flooding caused not by storms but by a rise in sea level. The report says that since 1957, nuisance flooding on all three American coasts has increased from 325% to 925% in some cities.
Dr. William Sweet, an oceanographer at NOAA and the report’s lead author, says in the press release announcing the report:
“Flooding now occurs with high tides in many locations due to climate-related sea level rise, land subsidence and the loss of natural barriers. The effects of rising sea levels along most of the continental U.S. coastline are only going to become more noticeable and much more severe in the coming decades, probably more so than any other climate-change related factor.”
(But of course this won’t happen to those who staunchly deny the science.)
The full report, “Sea Level Rise and Nuisance Flood Frequency Changes around the U.S.,” is available as a .pdf file on NOAA’s website. Or you can just check The Weather Channel’s website for stats on the 10 cities with the greatest increases in nuisance flooding: 10. Norfolk, VA (a mere 325% increase); 9. San Francisco, CA; 8. Washington, DC; 7. Charleston, SC; 6. Port Isabel, TX; 5. Sandy Hook, NJ; 4. Philadelphia, PA; 3. Atlantic City, NJ; 2. Baltimore, MD; and 1. Annapolis, MD (the winner — or loser — with a 925% increase).
Anybody want to buy a beach?
Thanks to a summer-style “polar vortex”, all-time low temperature records were set across the Eastern U.S. the other day. Here in Missouri we had lows in the 50’s, but in New England, even lower. It occurs to me that if cold air is coming down here from the pole, then it must be being displaced up there by warmer air from down south. Greenland is the principal repository of glaciers at the top of the world. The Northwest Passage may become viable faster and for longer each season than was anticipated.
I think it was Time Magazine that had an article in the last couple of years explaining how the Arctic ice has melted so much that nations are rushing to claim more of the sea floor up there for oil exploration, and ships are starting to sail polar routes that weren’t open before.
But to add to the weirdness, yesterday in Denver we had a record low high temperature for the date. I think it was about 62 here at my house.
Oh they’re slowly coming around — sort of. Most are willing to admit that the climate is changing, but won’t admit that people had anything to do with it. Apparently in their universe the climate is controlled by God and man can’t effect it. So we shouldn’t try because that would be going against God’s will, and he’d have to smite us.
Smite us, how? I know, I know — flooding in low lying areas!
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Those would be the same people who claim gulf hurricanes are God’s way of punishing gays … or some nonsense like that.
Yep, them’s the ones!
I’m definitely not a denier, but sometimes I’m a bit slow at connecting the dots. I’ve been thinking that I’ve been hitting the beach at high tide a lot lately. Somehow the lightbulb turned on while reading your post that it could be that it’s likely the new low tide with less beach available all the time. duuh 🙁
Makes sense to me. But I’ve never lived on a coast, so have no personal experience with tides.
When our midday update went out this afternoon, the lede story was that Little Rock had one of its coolest Julys on record. I winced a bit because I know that we’ll get a new rush of letters along the lines of “Well, if it’s global warming, then why was I wearing long sleeves the other day? Sure didn’t feel warm to me!”
Bracing myself …
I know the feeling. I get the same comments from my otherwise highly educated son. 🙁
That thar science is eeeevil, I tells ya!
If I hadn’t become an editor and writer, I seriously had considered becoming a scientist of some sort (I leaned toward criminology, but it all fascinated me). That by itself is probably enough for some of these guys to want to lash me to a stake.
I’ve stopped arguing with them; they’re just gonna repeat the same stuff they always do and it’s no longer entertaining. Let them save their matches for the next blizzard in October or March.
Science was my second love, too. Just about everything except chemistry and botany.
No, no point in arguing with willful ignorance.
Way things are going, here in Australia we are likely to get our vast inland sea back again, which will be good for some but not the 90%plus that reside around our shoreline. Serves them right they voted the deniers into government! 🙂 😉 ?)
I read an article somewhere that was talking specifically about a problem in Australia where the encroaching tides, when they recede, are raising the salinity of the soil and ruining farmland. Or something like that. Apparently some of Australia is a lot lower than I realized. Hope you live on high ground.