Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, lahars and Californians moving in ... Seattle is screwed in a million ways. But we're lucking out when it comes to the looming disaster of rising sea levels.
Because Seattle rises above the water so steeply, even five to six feet of higher seas by the end of the century, fed by the collapse of polar ice sheets, won't cause the devastation here that will happen elsewhere in the country, according to new research.
And that's great ... unless you own property or run a business in Seattle's Duwamish industrial zone, which Seattle Public Utilities research shows will be the hardest-hit region.
A new study led by Mathew Hauer at the University of Georgia found that some 13 million Americans in 319 coastal counties are "at risk" under a sea rise of nearly six feet.
But of those in danger of being swept over by marine waters, nearly 70 percent live in the southeastern U.S., suggesting the impacts will be highly regionalized in nature.
However, that's not the end of climate change's challenges for the Seattle region. In addition to losing ground to the Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound, climate models predict heavier rainfall. And guess what? We hit record rainfall by March and it's been raining hard since.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/science/article/Seattle-sea-level-rise-climate-change-catastrophe-6921208.php?google_editors_picks=true