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Unless you build your house less than 18 inches above sea level, you will not live long enough to have the long-run trend in sea level rise affect where you liv
by FreeInFlorida 9y ago
Unless you build your house less than 18 inches above sea level, you will not live long enough to have the long-run trend in sea level rise affect where you live.
Humans have been dealing with and adapting to the natural rate of sea level rise for hundreds of years. Most of Florida, most of Manhattan, almost all of Louisiana, and many, many other highly-populated areas were uninhabitable swampland before we learned to master sea level and the slow, natural rise that has gone on for as long as we have been making scientific measurements.
This panic about rapidly rising seas is nonsense. No Pacific islands have "disappeared" due to sea level rise, nor have any Arctic or Alaskan villages -- those that have seen changes are due to subsidence, not rising seas.
If you want to attribute the 160-year record of slow, steady, 2-3mm/year (2-3cm/decade) natural rise in sea levels to some mysterious factor that has been in place since CO2 levels were below 300, let's hear your theory. Otherwise, there is nothing to be alarmed about.
- sulam 9y ago"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." Here in reality, I actually live on an island. And our 100-yr flood lines just got moved in, meaning 2000 houses that weren't considered at risk of flooding are now having to deal with flood insurance or lack thereof.
- inevitable2 9y agoI live on the Mississippi river and they also changed the 100 and 500 year flood lines. In my city alone after remapping the flood lines they added 2000-4000 additional houses to the 100yr flood zone and now required to have flood insurance. I'm in the upper midwest in a location that hasn't flooded in the last 100 or anywhere near close to that. Thats not to say it ever will, but the changing of the flood lines has little to do with sea level rise or lack there of. It has more to do with money than anything.
- FreeInFlorida 9y agoWhatever the reason for the change in flood zone lines -- less risk tolerance by the insurers, more accurate mapping, over-development, etc. -- it shouldn't be because of a change in the rate of sea level rise, because there isn't one.
- oh_sigh 9y agoYou would still need to change floodlines if the ocean levels are constantly increasing, so I'm not sure what your point is with this post.
- FreeInFlorida 9y agoYes, sea levels are constantly rising -- at exactly the same slow, steady, manageable rate they have been rising for as long as we have been measuring them. Modifying flood insurance coverage maps isn't anything new, either, but any changes being made should not be blamed on an INCREASE in the rate of rise, because there is no INCREASE in the rate of rise.