Coastal cities at risk from global warming

While I know that this issue is seemingly obvious, most people don't think about it much. Around the world, many major cities, especially the oldest cities, were built adjacent to water, because boats and ships were the primary means of transportation across long distances. Imagine the impact on cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New Orleans, Miami, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc., from rises in the sea level as the polar ice caps melt.

The Guardian reports, "British coastal cities threatened by rising sea 'must transform themselves': Hull and Portsmouth could be dramatically remodelled, suggests report" on one such study, Facing up to Rising Sea Levels. Retreat? Defence? Attack?, looking at the potential impact on cities in the UK. From the article:

The report, Facing up to Rising Sea Levels. Retreat? Defence? Attack?, suggests swaths of Hull and Portsmouth's city centres could be allowed to flood over the next 100 years and large parts of the populations moved out.

In a model that explores managed retreat from the coast in some areas, Hull's historic city centre would be limited to an island reached by bridges and Venetian-style water taxis, while in Portsmouth large parts of Portsea island would be given back to the sea while new "hillside living" developments would be built on densely packed hillside terraces, akin to the towns of Italy's Amalfi coast. "The scenarios we have created are extreme, but it is an extreme threat we are facing," said Ruth Reed, Riba president. "Approximately 10 million people live in flood-risk areas in England and Wales, with 2.6m properties directly at risk of flooding."

Other options include building out into rising waters using piers and platforms to create new habitable space – a strategy known as "attack". In Hull this could involve floating disused oil rigs up the Humber and reusing them for offices, homes and university buildings, while in Portsmouth two-storey piers could be built with the lower tier used for traffic and the top tier used for pedestrian space.

The DC-Maryland-Virginia region would be greatly impacted by rise in sea levels, as would all the cities and counties along the seaboard -- the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean, and the area around the Great Lakes in the Midwest could possibly be impacted as well.

"Climate politics" are truly local if you live close to the ocean.