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Comment by singularity2001 | Hacker News Reader

singularity2001

10 cm are already a problem? did I miss some news / tides?

A) It's a foot compared to historical levels, it's 10cm since the 1990s.

B) It's a constant problem in Miami where high tide is now above the level of many roads so they've had to jack the roads up several feet more.

C) Venice, Italy is routinely flooded because of sea-level rise and it's only getting worse.

ok 30 cm is a lot.

one thing that I don't fully understand yet: there were always storm surges above 2m (?) how come that 50cm sea-rise without any storm surges are already causing problems?

An extreme event that happened once every few years (or decades) might be tolerable, and become a vastly larger problem if it starts happening once a month instead.

New York recovered from Sandy, but the city would need massive changes if that water level became routine.

Having a higher base-line sea level is never going to help with flooding. Remember a component of the rise is that the water is warmer, and warmer water takes up slightly more space, but the real problem is that the increased temperature makes storms more aggressive and from there increases storm surge.

> B) It's a constant problem in Miami where high tide is now above the level of many roads so they've had to jack the roads up several feet more.

No, it isn't. It's a problem during king tides. Yes, king tide flooding is getting worse, but "constant problem" is an exaggeration.

thanks for the clarification. anything except exaggerated tides wouldn't make any sense to me

When parts of your city flood every king tide that's a constant problem because that threat has not gone away.

Parts of South Florida have flooded during king tides for decades. This is not a new occurrence.

Obviously, but when new parts get flooded and the flooding becomes ever more frequent, it is.

Or you can stubbornly deny this.

Check out the increase in tidal flooding on the US east coast: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/04/science/globa...

Edit: Actually it's already 30cm from global warming. That is something. Sorry that I forgot that: https://climate.nasa.gov/system/charts/12_seaLevel_left.gif

Old: ok so 10cm global sea rise + 15cm tide fluctuation, which might well reverse.

I can't believe some cities are built so close to the water when storm surges and natural tide fluctuation over decades is over 50 cm (20'') as seen in Alaska etc. ^^ This statement still holds somewhat.

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