We think Florida will be underwater sooner or later because,  according to geologists, it has already happened at least four times in the past.  The last time was a few million years ago, so perhaps it is time soon, partly because human activity is hastening the day.

Although it will not be our lifetime, quite a few people have begun moving away from the coasts.

Climate change is not a belief, it is a fact.

Read the original story with photos here in Yahoo.com.

Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum

But sea levels are rising, and the state is sinking, and at some point that’s going to cause problems for our 8,346 miles of shoreline. More than it already is, that is.

What causes sea levels to rise?

Sea levels have risen and fallen throughout Earth’s history as it passed through its ice ages and other geological changes. We’re in a rising stage, aided by human-induced climate change. NOAA says the ocean is absorbing “more than 90 percent of the increased atmospheric heat associated with emissions from human activity.”

The main reasons for global sea levels are:

• The Earth and its oceans are getting hotter, and water expands when it heats up.
• Melting glaciers add fresh water into the ocean.

Local sea levels may be rising faster or more slowly depending on local factors such as erosion, regional ocean currents, sinking land (subsidence), upstream flood control, and more. For a state surrounded on three sides by water, that’s not something we can ignore.

How fast is the sea level rising around Florida?

Globally, the sea level is currently rising at about 1/8 of an inch every year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA also measures relative sea level (RSL) trends, which are local sea level measurements made with respect to a local fixed reference on land. Relative sea level along the U.S. coastline is projected to rise, on average, 10-12 inches in the next 30 years, which is the same amount of increase that we saw over the last 100 years.

At Port Canaveral, sandwiched between the Banana River and Atlantic Ocean in Brevard County, the RSL is rising twice as fast as the U.S. coastline average, a 1/4 of an inch (6.25mm) a year, which works out to 2.05 feet in 100 years if you assume nothing else changes. Other areas around the Florida coast are rising more slowly, according to RSL readings, but they’re still rising.

This doesn’t sound like much but it adds up, especially since Florida has the second-lowest elevation of the states, an average of 100 feet above sea level, tied with Louisiana and just above Delaware. Florida also has the lowest high point: Britton Hill reaches just 345 feet above sea level. There are buildings here taller than that.

In a worst-case scenario — human emissions increase, Earth heats up faster, more intense storms pound the coastline, etc. — a rise of over 6 or 7 feet is possible by 2100, NOAA said in the agency’s 2022 projections.

Note that different agencies have different predictions based on the available data, predictions are regularly adjusted as conditions change and more data becomes available, and every area of coastline has its own variables. Here’s what different experts have said we can expect.

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By 2040: Expect more than a half-a-foot raise

In the next 20 years, we can expect an average of 7 inches in sea level rise, according to projections from Resources for the Future, a group of economists and other experts focused on environmental and natural resource issues. But that’s if global greenhouse gas emissions rise by 1% annually. If they increase more than the organization says we might see sea level rises of 10-16 inches by then.

By 2050: Increased tidal flooding, more major flooding

General projections put sea level rise at about a foot by 2045-2050. Using NOAA’s Sea Level Rise Viewer, which extrapolates from the current best-available data, the effects can be seen. A 1-foot rise in the sea level sends water over streets in the Keys, Miami Beach, barrier islands from Melbourne to Palm Coast, and at least part of every coastal city in Florida. And flooding will be worse.

In a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the online real estate appraisal site Zillow, researchers concluded that by 2045 (roughly the span of a current 30-year mortgage) about 64,000 residential properties in Florida, representing a market value of about $26 billion, could see “chronic inundation” (regular tidal flooding not related to any storm).

Confidence in sea level predictions to 2050 is fairly high among experts, according to FSU’s Florida Climate Center. Beyond 2050, it depends on “greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature increases, and ice sheet melt in Antarctica and Greenland,” making long-term predictions less certain.

By 2060: Nearly 3-foot rise possible in South Florida

In 2019, predictions from a group of more than a dozen scientists, researchers and local government staffers from South Florida released at the Southeast Florida Climate Leadership Summit bumped up the previous expectation from 14-26 inches of sea level rise by 2060 to 17-31 inches. In contrast, NOAA’s 2022 projections revised their own predictions from 2017 slightly downward.

By 2080: 1.5 to 3.4 feet sea level rise possible all over Florida

The Florida Climate Center projected RSL amounts for the next 50 years based on low and high scenarios. Under these predictions, by 2080 Daytona Beach could see a rise from 1.57-3.31 feet, Pensacola could see from 1.64 to 3.28 feet, and Naples could see from 1.67-3.38 feet.

By 2100: If emissions grow worse, a 7-foot sea level rise may flood South Florida, coastal cities

Again, predictions this far out are tricky and depend on a lot of shifting variables. But a minimum of 2 feet of sea level rise seems likely and much more is not out of the question.

“By 2100, Florida is likely to experience at least 2 feet of rise (above 2020 levels) due to emissions to date,” NOAA oceanographer William Sweet told Newsweek, “but that rise amount could be much higher if emissions and resulting ocean and atmospheric heating continues to increase. Up to 6 feet or so of rise by 2100 cannot be ruled out under a high emissions/heating scenario.”

But it could be worse than that. Even under NOAA’s slightly more optimistic 2022 report, it said that “failing to curb future emissions could cause an additional 1.5 to 5 feet of rise for a total of 3.5 to 7 feet by the end of this century.”

It’s unlikely that Florida will be completely underwater for hundreds of years, if ever. But according to the latest projections, it might feel like it within our lifetimes.