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Comment by joelbluminator | Hacker News Reader

The only time anything like this came close was a freak storm in 1953 as far as I know - 2000 dead in the Netherlands (also 200 dead in UK). Since then sea defenses have been improved by a huge factor, nothing was left to chance. I just don't see the kind of freak event that can cause this (and why would a freak storm hit the Randstad and not New York / London / San Francisco ?). If you're talking about gradual sea level rise doing this, well the current pace is 3.8 mm rise a year. Even if the rate doubles (is this likely?) we're still under one meter in 100 years. I wouldn't run away to Sweden just yet but hey it's a free country! P.S the sea level rise pace around Netherlands is even lower than the rest of the world currently.

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That freak storm did us a huge favor, if not for that the general public would have likely balked at protecting the rest of the country. But 1953 is taught in school here and people in general are quite appreciative of the fact that they have 'dry feet'.

thing is cat 5 hurricanes happen every year (and are thus not freak storms), just not here. In the parts of the world where these happen, people tend not to live below sea level so even poor islands eventually recover after being hit. Extrapolating form the current climate the probability for cat5 hurricane winds in NL is about zero, cause the mechanisms that cause these kinds of storms don't apply here. But as the climate changes, and the seas warm, you might see the general storm patterns change, and you might get into a different regime where such storms are possible. Take hurricane Lorenzo, the easternmost Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record. What was previously unthinkable just happened last October. If you extrapolate from this trend (more frequent, more eastern hurricanes happening in the Atlantic), I think it looks a lot less unlikely that one of those monster will someday make it to the North Sea.

Same with sea level rise: the currently observed rate of change is very manageable, and even a factor 5 higher can probably be managed. But what if we reach (or have already reached) a tipping point in the climate system that causes rapid acceleration of sea level rise? The existence of these tipping points cannot be derived from historical (say last 1000 years) observations, and therefore one might conclude that they don't exist. I believe such reasoning is known as the black swan logical fallacy. But from my casual observations, we are entering uncharted territory now (greenhouse gas levels, sea temperature, changing weather patters, changing jet stream patterns), so who knows what will happen.

Last point, look at the temperature 40,7 °C reached just last summer. Until 2018 the highest recorded temperature was 38,4 °C (in 1947). Some say this was a huge outlier, I think this is the new normal. I would love to know the probability of this happening taking the weather observations from start of record until 2018, would be surprised it it in the 1:1.000.000 range.

edit: Of course someone did the math (in Dutch) https://www.knmi.nl/over-het-knmi/nieuws/hoe-bijzonder-zijn-...

The British Isles form a big protection block for the country from the worst weather coming form the ocean.

Also, if the sea level rise is caused by ice melting on the North Pole the rises will be countered considerably by the earth's crust rising due to the mass being removed from it.

Sea level rises are scary - and are part of the reason I don't live in Amsterdam / Utrecht / Rotterdam - but that shouldn't be the thing to scare us.

Food shortages and the wars this will fuel will be a problem long before the sea causes the dykes to fail (and my assumption is that said dykes are part of what makes The Netherlands almost impossible to defend).

It's a mixed blessing. They also allow water to pool in the channel because it can't really flow out fast enough. And contrary to what you say the dikes are part of the defenses of the country. The Spanish had an interesting experience to that effect.

None of this seems likely. It's like moving out of San Francisco because an earth quake might happen. Even if a freak hurricane arrives (it shouldn't since the waters aren't tropical, but whatever lets say this somehow changed in the next 50 years), even if, you'd have weeks to evacuate people, so casualties shouldn't be too high. Infrastructure would be damaged yes, but doesn't seem to me like something that devastates the country. The water will eventually be pumped out. And btw what do the once in 10000 years storm defense are preparing for if not just that?

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