[nep321]

I know a few people who are trying to move to north Florida in fear that their home will become worthless in the near future, in the Miami metro area. Streets are flooding more often. I even heard of an art gallery in Fort Lauderdale that fills up with water every year now inside.

So then why do banks continue to lend money to home buyers in south Florida if the risk of rising sea level is so high, eventually causing properties to become worthless??

Will this actually happen? Will South Florida still be liveable in say, 2050? How big of a concern is this??

[Corrie22]

...since sea level rise has been consistent for the past 100 years....less than 1 foot a century/100 years

2050....30 more years....it will be about 3 inches higher

...in 100 years....it will be less than a foot higher

sea level trends Miami > https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sl...tml?id=8723214 <<<< before...during and after global warming....has not had any effect on sea level rise in Miami

[elchevere]

Do you consider 40-50 years soon, if the worst situation even occurs? ....see Amsterdam....on a side note, California was supposed to be in the ocean by now after “The Big One” hit—still waiting on that.

[kemahkami]

Here's the problem. Take away Florida, and what do you have left with regards to reliably warm winter locations in this country? Practically nowhere. Just little slivers of land that comprise lower/coastal California and lower Arizona. Also, some isolated chain of islands miles out in the Pacific. The US is truly an unlucky landmass in this department, right next to Canada and Russia.

Until that issue ceases, expect loads of real-estate to concentrate in South Florida, along with other locations in the lower half of the peninsula. And that development will continue regardless of the imminent threat of sea-level rise. The main impacts in the nearer terms will come in terms of
poisoning" regarding the water supply, rather than outright inundation of the land.

[stank1964]

Wow, it seems like OP doesn’t realize that man has been holding back the sea for hundreds of years. Regardless of what the idiots in Washington say, walls really do work and it’s very likely that we will be able to build wall(s) quicker than water will rise. SMH.

[WRnative]

See Table 1 here for the expert projections of southeast Florida sea level rise. Bottom-line, there may be a foot of sea level rise in the next 10 years, with accelerating sea level rise becoming more pronounced each year.

https://southeastfloridaclimatecompa...L_02212020.pdf

With mounting levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, warming oceans, and a slowing Gulf Stream, sea level rise in the past 100 years has little bearing on what to expect in the next few decades let alone century.

<<Take out a 30-year mortgage on a house in the Tampa Bay area, and by the time it is paid off the sea level will have likely risen 1 or even 2 feet, according to the Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel....

The Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel says that the water levels have increased by 7.8 inches since 1946, when they were first recorded at the St. Petersburg tide gauge. That’s cold comfort, because the projected rise is now being measured in feet, not inches.

The group says that actual measurements, not just models, show that sea-level rise is accelerating. By 2100, the sea level on the Tampa Bay area’s nearly 700 miles of coast could be 8½ feet higher than it was at the turn of this century. Numbers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Climate Assessment and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are similarly alarming. Carbon dioxide levels have risen by nearly a third in just the past 50 years. There is a lag, but hotter temperatures and faster-rising seas will follow.>>
>>

https://www.theinvadingsea.com/2019/...et-not-inches/

Climate change deniers love to cite past sea level rise history, but ignore the strong correlation in the geological record between earth's carbon dioxide levels and sea levels. Frighteningly, we are now entering a period of rapid "catch-up."

<<In 2015, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels passed 400 ppm. The last time carbon dioxide levels persisted at 400 ppm was about 3.8 million years ago, and sea level was more than 70 feet above present level.

There were also brief periods with carbon dioxide above 400 ppm beginning about 2.9 million years ago, and these had sea levels 70 feet or more above the present. We are now well above 400 ppm (417 ppm last week) and with no global commitment to slow or reverse the rise.>>

https://www.theinvadingsea.com/2021/...lobal-warming/

From the beginning of the above article, which doesn't even address the rapid rise of methane levels in the atmosphere. Methane is a much more significant greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

<<The only solution to global warming is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This can only be done by some combination of two things – stop burning fossil fuels which continue to add to the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans and remove most of the extra carbon dioxide we have put in.

This is not something that will go away by itself. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years and will keep warming the atmosphere for decades and the oceans for centuries even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today. Carbon dioxide is the dominant greenhouse gas driving and increasing atmospheric and ocean warming....

In the 1960s, atmospheric carbon dioxide was increasing 0.8 ppm per year. Since 2014 (the last 5 years of the graph), atmospheric carbon dioxide has more than tripled to about 2.6 ppm per year.>>

Miami Beach has budgeted over $500 million to ameliorate the impact of sea level rise, and Wanless explains in the following article why this will be insufficient in the long run.

<<Of late, what worries Wanless most are the “21 climate change feedback loops” that he says are now accelerating the melting of glaciers and the polar ice sheet. Those processes — such as the recent finding that more frequent rain in Greenland has doubled the rate the continent now contributes to sea level rise — have made Wanless increasingly pessimistic about South Florida’s future.>>

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/its-o...160000886.html

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2634500290

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by nep321

How big of a concern is this??

Ask the people who have bought property in Martha's Vineyard in the last few years.

[kokonutty]

Originally Posted by nep321

I know a few people who are trying to move to north Florida in fear that their home will become worthless in the near future, in the Miami metro area. Streets are flooding more often. I even heard of an art gallery in Fort Lauderdale that fills up with water every year now inside.

So then why do banks continue to lend money to home buyers in south Florida if the risk of rising sea level is so high, eventually causing properties to become worthless??

Will this actually happen? Will South Florida still be liveable in say, 2050? How big of a concern is this??

Probably because banks rely on hard data rather than alarmist scare stories not based in fact.

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by kokonutty

Probably because banks rely on hard data rather than alarmist scare stories not based in fact.

True, but NOT because banks don't think there is risk resulting from accelerating sea level rise to many properties for which they provide financing. Banks rely on the fact that they can pocket the fees for writing these mortgages then dump the future liabilities on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, with any eventual losses suffered by the nation as a whole.

<<A recent paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research described how banks are shifting riskier mortgages—such as those in coastal areas—off their books and over to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie are by regulation prohibited from considering climate risk in their pricing.>>

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkam...h=6bb6fa684f50

Reading through the above and other similar articles, the risks to coastal property owners, coastal communities, and to all Floridians extend well beyond just the properties at immediate risk. With every passing year, investors will become more reluctant to underwrite the Florida economy. From the above article:

<<What’s more, the fate of Florida’s citizens, homes, towns, businesses and overall economy depend on decisions being made right now on 30-year mortgages and bonds that will be critically impaired by that 2050 high-tide line....

Once investors and insurers decide that the value of too many 30-year mortgages face an unacceptable level of risk, many mortgages (including yours?) will go underwater or even be thrown into default. Even worse for the rest of Florida, financing for new long-term mortgages, utility debt offerings, and municipal bonds for schools, roads, bridges, sewers, etc., will dry up. That in turn will deflate real estate values overall and crush the backbone of the Florida economy—and send Florida into a deep and costly tailspin.

It could happen next month, next year or a few more years out; but—on our present course—it is sure to happen much sooner than 2050. >>

Repeated threads in this forum have explained how a collapse in affordable insurance is the likely catalyst for an imposition of the reality of climate change on the Florida economy. From the above article:

<<A worst-case scenario was bracingly laid out by Spencer Glendon at the recent Sohn Investment Conference and in related interviews, such as here.

Glendon points out that Florida’s mortgage debt is underwritten by annual insurance. So, while mortgage and bond holders accept 30-year terms, hazard insurers make only one-year commitments. As losses mount or insurers get more sophisticated at estimating potential losses, insurance will get more and more expensive. If current behavior continues, Glendon predicts that “insurance markets will dry up” long before Florida is under water.>>

A major hurricane striking a heavily populated metropolitan area may be the catalyst for Florida's economic reckoning. Or it may be re-rating of FEMA flood insurance premiums, or increasing recognition of accelerating sea level rise as the next few decades unfold.

In the past month, the threat of warming oceans off Florida due to a slowing Gulf Stream has again gained the attention of scientists. Warmer oceans will result in greater thermal expansion, more rapid hurricane intensification, warmer atmospheric temperatures, higher levels of humidity and greater rainfall.

https://www.livescience.com/gulf-str...te-change.html

[LKJ1988]

Homes will be fine for a while. Since the planet is warming at a unreal rate nate sea level rise can be as much as 12ft pete in some parts of the glob out past 70 years.