{"id":305,"date":"2012-11-28T19:26:20","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T00:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/savannah-and-jacksonville-most-vulnerable-to-rising-sea-level.html"},"modified":"2012-11-28T19:26:20","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T00:26:20","slug":"savannah-and-jacksonville-most-vulnerable-to-rising-sea-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/savannah-and-jacksonville-most-vulnerable-to-rising-sea-level.html","title":{"rendered":"Savannah and Jacksonville most vulnerable to rising sea level"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nSavannah and Jacksonville are among the east coast cities most vulnerable\nto rising sea levels due to climate change, a study finds.\nSavannah, Georgia’s main seaport, with storm surges, hurricanes,\nand waves on top:\nwhat will that look like?\n<\/p>\n

\nSuzanne Goldenberg wrote for the Guardian today,\n\nUS coastal cities in danger as sea levels rise faster than expected, study warns:\nSatellite measurements show flooding from storms like Sandy will put low-lying population centres at risk sooner than projected<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nA\n\nstudy published last March by Climate Central<\/a> found sea-level rise\ndue to global warming had already doubled the risk of extreme flood\nevents \u2014 so-called once in a century floods \u2014 for dozens\nof locations up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt singled out the California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego on\nthe Pacific coast and Jacksonville, Florida, and Savannah, Georgia,\non the Atlantic, as the most vulnerable to historic flooding due to\nsea-level rise.\n<\/p>\n

\nSandy, which produced a 9ft storm surge at Battery Park in New York\nCity, produced one example of the dangerous combination of storm\nsurges and rising sea level. In New York, each additional foot of\nwater puts up to 100,000 additional people at risk, according to a\nmap published with the study.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThat study projected 6 inches rise at Fort Pulaski by 2030 (minimum 3 inches)\nand 13 inches by 2050 (maximum 24 inches).\nBut projections have gotten worse since then:\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"Sea<\/a>\nThe latest research,\n\npublished on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters,<\/a>\nfound global sea-levels rising at a rate of 3.2mm a year, compared to the best estimates by the IPCC of 2mm a year, or 60% faster.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSo that would be more like 9 inches by 2030 and 20 inches by 2050.\n<\/p>\n

\nAdd to a higher base sea level bigger storms like Hurricane Sandy,\nand Savannah and Jacksonville have a problem.\nSure, Savannah is\n\n\nnominally somewhere around 40 to 49 feet\nabove sea level, but parts of Manhattan are much higher than that.\nAnd parts of both are lower.\nAccording to\n\nthe Climate Central fact sheet for Georgia:<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. Odds of a 100-year flood or worse by 2030, with sea level rise from global warming: 83%\n<\/li>\n
  2. Odds without global warming: 0%\n<\/li>\n
  3. Bottom line: global warming multiplies the odds by >3X\n<\/li>\n
  4. Historic local sea level rise rate: 1.2 inches\/decade\n<\/li>\n
  5. Projected new sea level rise by 2050: 13 inches\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \n\n\"5<\/a>\nRemember, that was before the new research that says sea levels\nare actually rising 60% faster.\nPlus a very high likelihood of at least one Sandy-class storm.\nLower Manhattan had\n\nan almost 14 foot storm surge.<\/a>\nThat’s close to 3 meters sea level rise,\nwhich at Savannah would look like\n\nthe map on the right.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

    \nBut wait: that doesn’t take into account two other factors:\nthe local rivers.\nLast year the\n\nChatham Emergency Management Agency<\/a> (CEMA)\nunveiled some maps of what would really be likely to happen,\naccording to\nSheila Parker in WSAV 20 June 2011,\n\nNew Storm Surge Maps For Chatham County Unveiled During EOC Briefing<\/a>.\n\n\"Old<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\nOn the left is the “Old” Category 3 Storm Surge Map,\nwhich looks much like the 5 meter map above, except maybe already worse.\n(Tybee Island is completely underwater even in a Category 1 hurricane,\naccording to CEMA’s maps.)\nOn the right is the “New” Category 3 Storm Surge Map,\nand here’s a description from CEMA Director Clayton Scott,\n<\/p>\n

    \n

    \n\u201cThe city of Savannah essentially becomes an island in about a\ncategory 2 storm\u2014it’s what had been a category 3 storm before\nis now occurring at a category 2 storm.\u201d To illustrate just\nhow much more of the area is predicted to be under water. The\npictures with this article show the “old” storm surge map for a\nCategory 3 hurricane…with the areas in light blue what would be\nexpected to be under 17 to 23 feet of water…and the new\nmap\u2014which takes into account what would happen when the\nSavannah and Ogeechee rivers overflow during the storm surge and\nthat water is pushed inland.\n<\/p>\n

    \nScott says the Director of the National Hurricane Center calls this\nthe worst storm surge area on the entire east coast of the United\nStates, \u201cThe point is, if it does hit us\u2014the storm surge\nis gonna be unbelievable in Chatham county and to me a prudent\nperson would say I don’t want to risk my life and my family’s\nlife\u2014I’m gonna get out of town.\u201d Scott says the reason\nstorm surge here is expected to be so bad is that our coastline is\nso shallow for about 90 miles out to the Gulf Stream. He says\nthere’s just no other place for the water to go.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \n\n\"CEMA<\/a>\nCategory 3, as in Hurricane Katrina when it hit New Orleans.\n\nIn 1999, Hurricane Floyd missed Tybee Island by 119 miles,<\/a>\nand was a Category 4 storm at the time.\nWhat Savannah would like like in a Category 4 hurricane is shown\n\nin CEMA’s map<\/a> on the left here.\nThat’s a 23 to 26 foot storm surge.\n<\/p>\n

    \n\n\"CEMA<\/a>\nCEMA’s\n\nCat 5 map<\/a> is on the right here.\nIt doesn’t look much worse, because not much more land would be submerged,\nbut everything would be about 3 to 5 feet deeper, 26 to 31.5 feet.\n<\/p>\n

    \nAll plus waves on top of the storm surge.\nAnd that’s even before further sea level rise.\n<\/p>\n

    \n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Savannah and Jacksonville are among the east coast cities most vulnerable to rising sea levels due to climate change, a study finds. Savannah, Georgia’s main seaport, with storm surges, hurricanes, and waves on top: what will that look like? Suzanne Goldenberg wrote for the Guardian today, US coastal cities in danger as sea levels rise […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,14,16,203,8,21,22,73,289,53,55,89],"tags":[1285,1286,1290,1255,1289,8719,8704,8706,8751,8701,170,1287,1099,560,1268,8702,12,8711,8712,8731,702,8758,1269,8725,1288,8727,8735],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-economy","category-environment","category-florida","category-georgia","category-planning","category-politics","category-safety","category-science","category-sustainability","category-water","category-weather","tag-category-3","tag-category-5","tag-cema","tag-chatham-county","tag-chatham-emergency-management-agency","tag-climate-change","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-florida","tag-georgia","tag-hurricane","tag-hurricane-floyd","tag-hurricane-katrina","tag-hurricane-sandy","tag-jacksonville","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-safety","tag-savannah","tag-science","tag-storm-surge","tag-sustainability","tag-tybee-island","tag-water","tag-weather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-4V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}