Miami could be underwater within 80 years, but rich people keep buying luxury waterfront homes (Pine Island: rent, condos)
MiamiMiami-Dade County
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But they do. Hurricane Andrew wreaked havoc on South Florida and they CHANGED the entire building code. We build to standards that aren't anywhere else in the US because of Hurricanes. Then insurance companies come in and require hurricane protection or your insurance bill would be more than the rest of your mortgage.
Yet, how many people still buy houses that are not Miami-Dade code? It's "nice" but most people don't pay much attention to it. Most houses in South Florida are not up to the new code.
They're not written as a matter of fact and that is my problem with them. "Miami could be underwater within 80 years. These articles are written in a way to work off of peoples fear because as humans that is a big motivator.
Scientist: Here is the water level rise in the past, here are the conditions moving forward, here is how we think those conditions will affect water level in the future with a range of x - y with a 95% confidence interval.
Then this article comes along and says the worst case scenario is that water increases 6 feet in 80 years and oh by the way the mathematical average of the elevation of Miami will be underwater.
That's a huge leap the article is making with A LOT of wrong assumptions. So you have both sides (you on the opposite side) take the article for fact and arguing against each other for literally no reason.
The CURRENT trend is .78 feet in 100 years. Given when much of Miami was built and the fact that 1 foot of rise is going to cause issues while we wont be underwater there will be plenty of issues that will need to be addressed in 80 years.
Of course we should assume there will be issues. There's issues everywhere, all the time. That's what drives progress. But we can pretty easily deal with problems as they come, in a reasonable, rational way. These articles are designed to be radical and sensational. And then you end up with people like the OP freaking out about them.
I think we pretty much agree here, for the most part.
The Miami chart isnt' the best because it's a bit outdated, they stopped collecting data. But this goes back to my comment that we won't see 6 - 10 inches by 2030. The current trend is not even remotely close to that. As I said, at what point does this become a religion? The Key West trend, which is current, shows less than 1 inch by 2030. And we have been hearing the sea level rise hysteria for decades now. At what point are we allowed to say "This is B.S."? They are wrong over and over... And they keep telling us 10 years, then 10 years goes by and they just recycle the same 10 year nonsense.
They get away with it about Miami because they discontinued the tide gauge when the Coast Guard station was moved....and the main reason is all the people that didn't grow up here and have no clue of the history.
That section of Alton Road that floods was flooding before Fisher paved it...Fisher was in a big hurry to pave it and didn't elevate it
The other section on the beach that floods was a lake..yes there was a lake in the middle of Miami Beach....it was filled in with bay bottom to make the golf course
...all of the places on the city side of the bay that flood were all mangrove swamp cleared with bay bottom fill pumped up to make land for speculators before the crash
Of course we should assume there will be issues. There's issues everywhere, all the time. That's what drives progress. But we can pretty easily deal with problems as they come, in a reasonable, rational way. These articles are designed to be radical and sensational. And then you end up with people like the OP freaking out about them.
I think we pretty much agree here, for the most part.
Yes we are in agreement for the most part. You just seem to keep falling in the trap of reading articles and pushing back against straw-man arguments. Yes people on the other side read these articles and take them as fact. That doesn't mean you have to argue against them as fact. Why not simply understand the true data and show how people (like the OP) are being misled by articles and not focusing on the true data. Instead you come off as if you think the whole thing is a hoax, which it isn't. At best its a 200 year problem instead of a 100 year problem and that is being generous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BNBR
The Miami chart isnt' the best because it's a bit outdated, they stopped collecting data. But this goes back to my comment that we won't see 6 - 10 inches by 2030. The current trend is not even remotely close to that. As I said, at what point does this become a religion? The Key West trend, which is current, shows less than 1 inch by 2030. And we have been hearing the sea level rise hysteria for decades now. At what point are we allowed to say "This is B.S."? They are wrong over and over... And they keep telling us 10 years, then 10 years goes by and they just recycle the same 10 year nonsense.
Your math is off. The key west trend is the same as the Miami trend. From the link you just posted:
"The relative sea level trend is 2.42 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.14 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1913 to 2018 which is equivalent to a change of 0.79 feet in 100 years."
That is almost IDENTICAL (slightly HIGHER) to the one I posted. 2.42 mm per year would mean that between 1992 and 2030 (38 years) the increase would be 91.96mm (2.42 x 38). That is 3.6 inches which is what I just stated (3 - 4 inches).
You are saying that the trend is 1 inch FROM TODAY. The problem with that description is that as you get closer to 2030 the increase will always be smaller. If you are going up 1 inch a decade then you're only going to go up 1/2 inch in 1/2 a decade.
So they picked the 1992 mean sea level as the starting point:
Quote:
Starting in 1992: The year 1992 has been selected as the initial year of the projection because it is the center of the current mean sea level National Tidal Datum Epoch of 1983-2001.
So that is almost 3 decades ago and the water has already gone up about 3 inches. So if you now come in and say it's only going to go up 1 inch by 2030 you cant ignore the 3 inches its already gone up so now the total is 4.
Quote:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2015) has reported the average global sea level has risen almost 3 inches between 1992 and 2015 based on satellite measurements.
Now if say in 2019 we just built Miami at the current baseline then your logic would work. But we didn't and were already 3 inches below where we should be and losing more each decade.
And this assumes the rate in the future is going to be the rate that was in the past which is what scientist say is not proving to be true. Here is the information from the same source you provided on Key West:
So the rate from 1913 up to 2006 it was 2.24 mm per year. And now the rate from 1913 up to 2018 is 2.42 per year. So the rate went up .18 mm in 12 years. So you can see that IF the rate is INCREASING then its hard to see when its being plotted against a 100 year trend. But just looking at the last decade it appears to be going up faster.
Again proven by current data. If water levels went up 3 inches from 1992 and 2015 that means then went up 3 inches in UNDER 3 decades. But if you drop that data in with the previous 75 years its hard to see from a 100 year trend line.
So this is the catch 22 for scientiest:
If you use only data from the last 20 years, you don't have enough data points to have a high confidence level. But if you use data from the last 100 years you have high confidence but you could be misled from all the previous data and miss whats currently happening.
I work in real estate development and thus have a bit more informed view of this. This article is severely lacking in making a logical argument. Or at a minimum is worded with terms that are loaded.
For example: "Miami as we know it today — there's virtually no scenario under which you can imagine it existing at the end of the century"
Key phrase is Miami "AS WE KNOW IT TODAY". Lets be honest no city is going to be as we know it today 100 years from now. Miami already isn't as we knew it 20 years ago.
In the argument they make the case for 6 feet of seal level rise and then say Miami is at average 6 feet above sea level....according to city-data.com?!?!?!? You would think at Business Insider they would understand how math works. You could have a small percentage well under 6 feet and a large percentage just above 6 feet and that would "average" 6 feet even though 80% is say at 7 feet.
Below is a topographical map showing 5 feet of sea level rise:
Under this scenario it is primarily just the beach and a lot of area near Cutler bay where people don't live. A pretty bad scenario but hardly a scenario that you could label "Miami could be underwater in 80 years".
But then that scenario is if we simply do nothing, which is ridiculous because were already changing things. They have been raising BFE (base flood elevation) and freeboard (feet you can build above BFE). Developers want to build their buildings as tall as possible. By increasing the point where you start the building above the ground you are essentially giving them more space to build. If you look at the new Target in Miami beach on 5th the sidewalks are 5 - 6 feet above where the street is now.
The life expectancy of most concrete buildings is about 60 years. Meaning 80 years from now even the building build today will either be torn down and rebuild or at least have a major renovation. So without doing anything different than what Miami would otherwise do over the next 80 years the vast majority of these areas will be at least 5 -6 feet higher than they are today.
"In the short term, sea level rise is projected to be 6 to 10 inches by 2030 and 14 to 26 inches by 2060 (above the 1992 mean sea level). In the long term, sea level rise is projected to be 31 to 61 inches by 2100. For critical infrastructure projects with design lives in excess of 50 years, use of the upper curve is recommended with planning values of 34 inches in 2060 and 81 inches in 2100."
As you can see above the projections vary quite a bit. The region is planning for the worst case scenario of 61 inches by 2100 but their estimates goes all the way down to 31 inches.
It seems a bit misleading to write an article about how people buying homes aren't doing anything but yet the entire region is planning for the worst case scenario.
But "Nothing to see here, Miami is slowly addressing the sea level problem that will happen over a century methodically planning for worst case scenario" doesn't attract people to your website.
Wow that is funny about the City Data statistic. Anyway, it is great that they are building higher in Miami. Eventually, in maybe 3,000 years, the seas may be 215 feet higher if all the ice melts,but I suppose by that time Miami will be 215 feet higher from all the infrastructure gradually rising.
They didn't get rich enough to afford this property by being stupid....they have computers and the internet....they can look up what the truth is..and they do
They didn't get rich enough to afford this property by being stupid....they have computers and the internet....they can look up what the truth is..and they do
It should tell you something when banks and insurance companies seem totally non-concerned by the sea level rise.
It should tell you something when banks and insurance companies seem totally non-concerned by the sea level rise.
well exactly....and no one would be building new sky scrapers, developing Brickell, everything that's going on on the river....Miami is booming and handing out building permits like they are candy
That section of Alton Road that floods was flooding before Fisher paved it...Fisher was in a big hurry to pave it and didn't elevate it
The other section on the beach that floods was a lake..yes there was a lake in the middle of Miami Beach....it was filled in with bay bottom to make the golf course
...all of the places on the city side of the bay that flood were all mangrove swamp cleared with bay bottom fill pumped up to make land for speculators before the crash
This takes us to the other side of the coin. Certain areas are affected by land subsidence, they are sinking. Reclaimed land, as the examples you mention, sinks faster.
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