Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Warming Wednesdays: rising sea levels


This interactive graphic lets you see which cities in your state will be under water with current trends -- and whether any can be saved by deep cuts in climate pollution. Because there is a lag of decades between warming and the full sea level rise, for many locations, flooding is "locked in." You may find the graphic responds slowly.

Because I've been flying a lot, I'm particularly conscious of this:

Oakland International and San Francisco International Airport — the 7th-largest U.S. airport by passenger volume — were both built on land reclaimed from wetlands, and are about 10 feet above the current local sea level.

Climate Central

Uhoh.
***
And as the seas rise with the addition of melt water, they also get warmer, at least in some areas. That apparently is prompting the rise of the jellyfish. Who knew those sometimes beautiful and sometimes lethal critters could cause this much havoc?

2 comments:

Hattie said...

That's creepy about the jellyfish, isn't it. Right now Hawaii is struggling with a huge flow of molasses off Oahu which has killed thousands of fish and damaged coral reefs.
As usual, we see a map of the U.S. that does not show Alaska or Hawaii!

janinsanfran said...

Thanks for raising my consciousness about the maps!