Fast-rising sea levels hit Atlantic coast hardest

(CBS News) JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Forget the heat -- the East Coast could be facing an even bigger environmental problem in the years to come, according to a study this week by the U.S. Geological Survey: rising waters.

In coastal Norfolk, Va., Ed and Julie Guyton hate to think about the constant threat of flooding they face.

"We've had three floods from tidal surges, storms that entered into our home in the first floor at least 7 inches up to 10 inches," Ed Guyton said.

Since 1990, sea levels have gone up about two inches around the world. But in Norfolk, it's more than double that: 4.8 inches.

"It's scary, it's petrifying. Are you kidding?" Guyton said. "You can't think about it."

It's not just Norfolk but a 600-mile stretch of the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Boston that's now seeing sea levels rise much faster than the rest of the world. Philadelphia's up 3.7 inches, New York 2.8 inches.

Read the research at Nature Climate Change

Ben Strauss studies rising sea levels for the non-profit Climate Central.

"Sea level rise is like a creeping tsunami," he said. "It goes almost imperceptibly year by year, but it's gaining in tremendous amount of strength and it is going to have an enormous impact on our coast."

Strauss blames global warming for melting polar ice caps that in turn slows the Gulf Stream, creating a traffic jam of water that makes sea rise worse along the East Coast.

New York City's Office of Emergency Management predicts sea levels two to five inches higher in the next decade; seven to 12 inches higher by the 2050's; and up to nearly 2 feet higher by the 2080s.

It would change the face of the city.

It's left some feeling hopeless.

"There is really not much that you can do," said Jerry Healy, the mayor of Jersey City, right across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Thirty-five percent of Jersey City is two to three feet below sea level right now. First floors of new buildings must be at least feet above the sidewalk.

Could Jersey City exist with the water levels being another three or four feet higher?

"It could exist, but not like we are doing business today," Healy said.

The best guess is rising sea levels could cost the major cities on the coast at least $300 billion by 2050.

Image shows the possible impact on lower Manhattan, N.Y. of rising sea levels by 2080.

/ CBS

[wranglerwayne]

Common sense tells me it is fast land subsidence, not a faster sea level rise that's the issue here. The sea can't permanently rise 3x or 4x compared to the rest of the globe, as water will seek its own level. When it is not rising elsewhere in the world at the same rate, that is a common sense clue that the land is subsiding.

[zibulki]

Iron Maiden said it best, Run to the Hills...

[MegaProcrastination]

I've wondered for a while if I'm the only person on the planet who thinks it's just a bad idea to build cities that smack right up against the ocean's edge. It seems to me if city planners are shortsighted enough to approve that kind of development they pretty much set the city up for failure in the first place.

[occupy_cbs]

Ulgnud: "Oh give it a rest. The planet hs been warming and cooling for longer than we have been here. Either do like the rest of nature does and adapt or suffer the consequences."

Ulgnud: "You can learn to adapt to a natural cycle of the planet"



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KPeters_from_UK: "There is a difference between gradual fluctuation between heating and cooling temperatures over centuries and what we are currently experiencing: rapid climate change."
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I just love the screeching from the anti-science deniers, even with a rapidly accelerating warming with each progressive decade warmer than the one before, and a sea level rise that has doubled in recent years from the 20th century average, they still have the gall to say it's just a "natural cycle" and a warmer planet is a "good thing".

Natural climate change in the past proves that climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect, yet we continue to burn fossil fuels at an unprecedented rate, making humans now the dominant climate forcing.

While organisms can adapt to a "natural cycle," it is yet to be determined whether or not they can adapt to an enhanced and rapidly accelerated cycle, bringing us a much more hostile environment with extended droughts and flooding.

[occupy_cbs]

A line of thunderstorms, 100 miles from tip-to-toe, rolled thru the Washington. D.C. area Friday night packing winds of 50-to-80 mph, reports Topper Shutt of CBS D.C. affiliate WUSA-TV. The same clump of storms hit southeastern Ohio and West Virginia with hurricane force winds Friday evening.

These types of storms, known as Musicale Convective System, or Derecho, are usually seen in the Midwest and not in the Mid-Atlantic, Shutt adds.

[honest_pols]

WE BETTER FACE IT:
For our own safety and future, we should abandon the cities.
The 'city way of life' is not healthy, and too costly in terms of causing further harm and destruction to the balance of our delicate planet.

[omnibus66]

The sea levels are not rising as a result of climate change. There are a secret group of liberals who each night gather up all of the b-s generated by the pugs that day, put it in bags and then dump it into the ocean. Hence the rising sea levels.

[occupy_cbs]

And that is quite a bit of generated B.S. by the deniers.

[BloodThirstySavage]

A team of special researchers commissioned by the ultra-conservative Political Action Committee known as Propagation of Insular Truth, or PITPAC, has determined from looking at very specific data that, in fact, sea levels are dropping, not rising. The reduction in sea level is due to the accumulation of billions of cubic meters of ice in the deepest and coldest regions of the oceans, where measurements can not be made. According to PITPAC, ice accumulating in these regions is greatly condensed under the enormous pressures of the ocean, causing sea levels at the surface to drop at an alarming rate. PITPAC suggests that dumping billions of tons of additional greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere might help to offset the sea level reduction by accelerating the melting of ice in the polar regions. PITPAC has recently been in talks with some of the nation's largest producers of greenhouse gasses to discuss ways of stabilizing water levels by releasing unprecedented levels of pollutants into the atmosphere as quickly as possible.

[r9119111]

Pahleez

[KPeters_from_UK]

You're kidding...right? Propagation of Insular Truth...wonderful name. Does anyone have the secret membership list?

[r9119111]

auir = air

[r9119111]

I need some help. Who makes auir-boats?