Is Miami drowning?

[MillCreek]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-change-deniers-sea-levels-rising

Regardless of the political issues surrounding climate change, I did not know that Miami and south Florida as a whole was experiencing these flooding problems.

[Ron]

I know some years back the beach in Jupiter Florida was about half washed out to sea. My mother lived there and everyone was pretty bummed out about that. Of course it was a hurricane that did that, not a typical storm surge.

 

[RevDisk]

Personally, I'd rather not live anywhere where a couple inch rise in seawater would devastate me. Because that means I'm gonna be devastated by any storm surge of a couple inches.

I'd also prefer not to subsidize bad ideas that encourage very bad ideas. I understand people like to visit and/or live near the beach. That's fine. But they should be aware that there is a danger of climate change, storms, hurricanes, whatever. It should be solely a discussion between them and their insurance company.

[Ben]

I like going to have a meal or a drink at one of the many restaurants and bars here that are built 50 feet from the ocean. I can't, however, feel sorry for people who build their million dollar plus structures 50 feet from, and 2 feet above, the ocean - a three dimensional, dynamic fluid that covers over 70% of the planet. The ocean moves. A lot.

Locally, there are images from the late 1800s showing that the entire waterfront was actually underwater at the time. It wasn't until engineered diversions were created that the local harbor came into being. In fact one of the roads leading to it has a section, about 1/4 mile from the beach, that dips down below sea level. It constantly floods, even though the state has spent tens of millions of dollars to try and stop it.

[roo_ster]

The author of the article is an ignoramus.

Every year, with the coming of high spring and autumn tides, the sea surges up the Florida coast and hits the west side of Miami Beach, which lies on a long, thin island that runs north and south across the water from the city of Miami.

Tides and tidal forces != sea level.  And tidal forces, when focused by barrier islands and shallow waters between keys & mainland, are an even poorer equivalence.  See tidal bores for a dramatic example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_bore

The simpler explanation for more incidents of seawater backing up storm sewers and into the streets during a tidal surge is...more storm sewers due to the increased development on Miami Beach. 

Hence the construction work at Alton Road, where $400m is now being spent in an attempt to halt these devastating floods – by improving Miami Beach's stricken system of drains and sewers.

No shinola.

Many of the keys in Florida were dredged up due to hurricanes.  It is a good bet they will be so dis-assembled in the future.  This has happened as recently as the 1920s IIRC.  Heck, one of the hurricanes that hit S Florida caused a tidal surge in Lake Okeechobee that busted a dyke and killed hundreds.  The 1920s and 1930s were the decades with the most devastating hurricanes in Florida.  Andrew in 1992 is the outlier.

Now, Miami does risk being inundated and flooded on a daily basis.  Because Miami is built on the edge of and partly into the Everglades.  Along the east coast of Florida and especially down in Miami, there are numerous pumps, locks, and canals that divert this water away from the city.  Mostly back into the glades.

[roo_ster]

Here is an example of what occurs down at Miami Beach, but up the west coast of Florida:
http://wikimapia.org/2004132/Hurricane-Pass

Hurricane Pass - Separates Honeymoon Island to the north and Caladesi Island to the south.

The pass marked, but the markers are often inaccuate. Boaters without local knowledge should read the tint of the water to avoid the shoals, which move north to south seasonally according to the strength of the longshore current...

The pass has slowly been narrowing since the mid 2000's as Caladesi Island has been extending northward. Normally erosion would split up the northern end of the island from the rest and currents would wash the breakaway island under but Caledesi Island has also been growing wider at it's northern end making this process less likely to repeat.

And a comment:

This is called "Hurricane Pass" because up until the 1920s, Honeymoon Island and Caladesi Island were connected, they were one great big island. Then a hurricane came through and actually cut this separation as part of the storm damage. *Do Not* swim here! While the islands are close enough that a moderately good swimmer should be able to make the passage in thirty or fourty minutes at the outside, the current in the pass is vicious, and several people drown every year from getting caught in it....

Addendum:


See those itty bitty islands between Caladesi & the mainland?  They did not exist before the 1920s, IIRC.

Very similar things can happen to Miami Beach without the seal level rising or falling an inch.

[MechAg94]

You can't be right unless you are tying the problem in with global warming somehow. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The ancient city of Alexandria has recently been (re)discovered.  It's right there in modern Alexandria, right off the coast, but we couldn't find it until recently because it's underwater.  

You can put on scuba gear and dive down to the old stone docks.  They're supposedly still in good, serviceable condition.  They don't build stuff like they used to.  A palace palace district has also been found underwater.  

Now, it should go without saying that Roman grain barges were not submersible and were not loaded and unloaded underwater.  And while Cleopatra had many famous talents, I don't think she could breath underwater.  Obviously the sea level has risen over the past 2000 years.

Personally, I blame those gas-guzzling Egyptian sport-utility-chariots.  

[BlueStarLizzard]

No wonder so many people in Miami get implants...

[dogmush]

Here is an example of what occurs down at Miami Beach, but up the west coast of Florida:
http://wikimapia.org/2004132/Hurricane-Pass

And a comment:

Addendum:
<Google map of the ICW in my stomping grounds>

See those itty bitty islands between Caladesi & the mainland?  They did not exist before the 1920s, IIRC.

Very similar things can happen to Miami Beach without the seal level rising or falling an inch.

Roo_ster is right that the whole point of barrier islands in nature are to move around and stop these forces (tidal and storm)  The FL habit of building things on temporary islands and then crying that the island moves is one of the most annoying habits of people around here.  Miami beach exists to be washed under and moved around periodically.

That said, I have to point out that those little islands in the ICW between the Caladesi and Dunedon are dredge spoil islands.  A whole 'nother issue.

[roo_ster]

Roo_ster is right that the whole point of barrier islands in nature are to move around and stop these forces (tidal and storm)  The FL habit of building things on temporary islands and then crying that the island moves is one of the most annoying habits of people around here.  Miami beach exists to be washed under and moved around periodically.

That said, I have to point out that those little islands in the ICW between the Caladesi and Dunedon are dredge spoil islands.  A whole 'nother issue.

Actually, that is interesting in and of itself.  Please go on.  Artifacts of keeping the ICW navigable?

[dogmush]

Yeah, and building canals to make more "waterfront" properties.

Tampa bay and the ICW are spotted with them.  They start as just area's on the chart marked as "Spoil Area" then eventually it goes from shallow, to shoal, to island, some palm trees grow on them (Swallows carry the seeds over, I'd imagine), people stop and party (I have a picture of my boat on that one of those very islands, it's a great picnic spot), then a storm comes through and redistributes it back across the ICW.

There's one in Tampa Bay that has done that whole lifecycle since I've lived here.  Thos ICW ones are a little more protected, so once they stop dumping spoil, and trees get a foothold they last for a bit.

[mtnbkr]

(Swallows carry the seeds over, I'd imagine),

African or European?

Chris

[wmenorr67]

And yet we still prop up a city that sit below sea level.  Still can't get over the feeling while being in NO looking up at the Mississippi River.