We all know the expression “hits home.”
Well, this research I’m about to report to you, for me is a gut punch!
Coastal flooding is not only washing away sand dunes and threatening beachfront property up and down the coast, but is causing a memorable, so beloved place where I grew up, Atlantic City, NJ to be at risk of, heaven forbid, disappearing!
A study published this month in the journal Nature reports that another city near and dear to me, Miami, is in the same leaky boat. With an average elevation of about six feet, Miami has the greatest land mass at risk of flooding among 11 cities studied on the Atlantic Coast.
Atlantic City ranks fifth in terms of land mass at risk due to rising sea level and other geological factors.
The value of properties facing inundation by 2050 in Miami total from $5.5 billion to $30 billion. Atlantic City falls second on the coast in that category, with properties valued at $2.8 to $20 billion, the study reports.
Atlantic City, once known as “The World’s Playground” today is where drowning in gambling debt may be taking on a scarier new meaning.
I used to live there not far from those expensive, high-rent district Monopoly blue properties Boardwalk and Park Place. Owning those, you usually won as you could charge the most exorbitant rents! Now, one day you may need Planetary Lifeguard™ to come bail you out.
Yes, “romantic enchantic” Atlantic City for me is a magical place where my musician/magician dad Bill Madden conducted his orchestra in summer concerts on Garden Pier and played his violin sweetly at the elegant Traymore Hotel, now sadly demolished.
I’d stroll the boardwalk eating popcorn and cotton candy, eyeing all the pretty girls at night. And on summer days I was a lifeguard on Atlantic City Beach Patrol saving bathers from drowning. Now omg, one day my city may need saving.
I must be so saltwater farsighted as recently I created a motivating figure, a modern-day symbol like Rosie the River and Smoky the Bear called Planetary Lifeguard™ to blow the whistle on what’s causing my beloved city and other cities close to my heart to sink—climate change.
Not only are sea levels rising there, but another problem is endangering the city where I graduated from Atlantic City High School. Now they’re saying the sinking problem could be made worse in New Jersey due to groundwater withdrawal and other geological factors.
To this day I still stay in touch with high school friends like Vicki Gold Levi and where one of my daughters, Robin, lives just a little south of Atlantic City in a more aristocratic part of Absecon Island called Margate, also I’m afraid in the ocean’s crosshairs as our planet keeps warming so worryingly.
Up to $20 billion worth of properties in Atlantic City could face exposure to flooding in about 25 years under sea level rise, according to research just published in the journal Nature.
The study “disappearing cities on U.S. coasts” says the sea level is projected to rise an additional 10 inches by 2050, “increasing the probability of more destructive flooding and inundation in major cities.”
But the impacts might even be worse as coastal lands sink in a process known as subsidence with New Jersey slowly sinking due to geological conditions, as well as groundwater withdrawal. According to the article in Nature, subsidence is often ignored when officials plan coastal management policies.
So, now we have a dual threat of rising seas and sinking ground compounding the potential for flooding. How wonderful is that?
And where do I live now? In South Florida, just a few feet from the warming ocean. Yes, I’m the WORDSHINE MAN, the title of my latest book, now living beside sea level rising and shining in my face.
The authors of the study used projections for sea level and subsidence to quantify potential flooding in 32 coastal cities. They found that up to 800 miles of land, containing up to 273,000 people and 171,000 properties, are at risk. Estimates run lower or higher depending on level of greenhouse gas emissions projected.
Researchers wrote that sea level rise will “pose a substantial socio-economic challenge” this century.
The average global sea level has risen over a half a foot in the past 100 years, and the rate of rise has only accelerated in the early 21st Century in response to warming temperatures. And, even if humans manage to stabilize temperatures in coming decades, sea levels will continue to rise because of past warming.
But sea levels along the coasts are rising faster than the global average.
Overall, the authors of the study estimate that 176,000 to 518,000 people living in 94,000 to 288,000 properties worth $32 to $109 billion will be exposed to flood risk by 2050. For their projections the authors incorporated relative sea level rise, which takes subsidence into account.
As an author, Tom Madden has created a flood of articles, books and blogs. These days worried about the devastating effects of sea level rise he has invented and trademarked Planetary Lifeguard™ to sound the alarm and blow the whistle at what’s causing so much havoc in the world, climate change. When he’s not rescuing climate, he’s running the public relations firm TransMedia Group, which he started when he left NBC where he was the #2 ranked executive and right hand to the president and CEO, then the TV programming whiz, Fred Silverman, who in 1977 TIME Magazine called “The Man with the Golden Gut.”