Global Warming Will Change the Coast

By putting most of it under water:

The pics are from a dailykos diary by devilstower: Hotter Than You Think

Recognize this place? It's the Gulf coast of the United States after a 10' rise in sea level. The basic shape looks fairly familiar, and from this landmark-free version of the map, you can be forgiven for thinking not much has changed. Here, try this version.



Those little dots give an inidication of just how far the coastlines would shift from this rise. All the cities along the coast would be not just inundated, but out to sea. New Orleans and Miami would be over a dozen miles from the nearest dry land. That's what ten feet means. The monetary losses are inestimable.

You saw the devestation caused by Katrina. you saw the panic, the loss of life, the shift of populations, and the tremendous costs. Now look at that map again. Can the US survive that? Add in the great coastal cities -- east and west -- being swamped one by one and battered by intense storms. Add in the interior of the country overrun by drought, a return of the dustbowl, as deserts replace farmlands.

Oh, and remember that those maps above are a ten foot rise. Make it twenty, and half of Florida is gone, along with another large slice of the coast. If those predictions of a > 10 degree increase are correct and the poles completely loose their ice, there's a much, much larger sea level rise in our future. A rise that could erase the whole state of Florida and bring coastline to Arkansas.