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In this edition

• New York state of mire
• Mercury rising

Main Stories

New York State of mire

In brief: Coastal cities run the risk of sinking over time.

Why it matters: We knew that coastal cities were at risk of rising sea levels and flooding. The risk of sinking under the weight of people, buildings and infrastructure, unearthed by a new study, means we may have to update our assessments of climate risk.

Time and tide

Climate change looks set to induce rising sea levels. For coastal towns and cities, rising sea levels can be joined with periodic erosion and subsidence, accelerating the process by which a sea view can turn from an asset into a liability. In such circumstances where that liability belongs becomes a political hot potato, as recent experiences in California have shown (see Grist).

Sizing the anthroposphere

A study by the US Geological Survey released this week tallied the weight of every building in New York City, putting this at 842m tonnes (or 140m elephants, writes The Guardian), and then estimated the downward force this would present across the city. Across clay-rich areas of the city, this is leading to buildings beginning to sink comparatively faster than in areas where bedrock or sand are more common. As a consequence, the city has sunk by around 9 inches since 1950, exacerbating the flood risk arising from rising sea levels and extreme weather.

The doomed lagoon?

Saving towns and cities from the elements is possible, but it does not always present a simple proposition. UNESCO World Heritage site Venice built a $5.3bn system of sea walls to withstand climate projections, but it is now thought that the project will be insufficient to meet the true extent of anticipated climate change, writes the New York Times. Indeed, the Environment Agency has just updated the Thames Estuary 2100 plan to accelerate London’s flood defences in response to worsening climate threats and rising seas, writes Business Green.

Structural shifts

What’s novel about the New York study is less that it establishes that the built environment has wider effects on the longevity of coastal cities. It is more that there has been a general received wisdom that coastal cities sink under the weight of their people, infrastructure and buildings, but a lack of data to quantify that effect. According to the lead author in the New York Times, it is 2-4mm per year and this needs to be factored into scenarios that look at future flood risk. Indeed, it also needs to be borne in mind that more development along a river may lead to further issues.

Distributional effects

For some countries, there is little luxury of building a wall. The low-lying Bahamas, consisting mostly of porous limestone and with a population distribution near the shoreline, rising sea levels are likely to be heavily affected by rising sea levels. According to The Guardian, Moody’s has predicted that the Bahamas were among the four nations forecast to be hit hardest by sea level rise, covering 11% of the population and 15% of GDP. The IPCC agreed in its fifth assessment report.

Sinking fund

In places where resources can be mustered and allocated to deal with floods and rising sea levels, distributional issues still exist. The New York Times writes of the issues Jakarta is facing by moving homes and infrastructure to safe ground. So far Government buildings have been moved but the jobs to be done include providing homes for 10m people.

In the case of New York, Grist writes of the fact that planned ‘Big U’ defences in the wake of Superstorm Sandy will protect Manhattan (which is at risk from both skyscraper-induced subsidence but also flooding) but not similarly double-hit communities in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx – areas where public housing predominate.

Early warning system

In more recent days, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has pointed to 11,788 extreme weather, climate and water-related events in the last half century, as reported by The Independent. The WMO provides early warning of weather-related events such as floods and extreme heat and, ahead of the World Meteorological Conference this week, has been pushing for its early warning systems to be available to all by 2027.

Mercury rising

In brief: The World Meteorological Organisation has warned that the world is on target to overshoot a 1.5 degree temperature rise.

Why it matters: The risk of overshooting, even if temporary, means that we both need to double down on efforts to mitigate emissions as fast as possible, and also get comfortable with the prospect of a changing climate.

Floods in Emilia Romagna

It’s too early to say if the recent floods in Italy were made worse by climate change, as reported in The Guardian but the expectation is that such events will be made more frequent. Six months’ worth of rain fell in Emilia-Romagna, an agricultural heartland, in 36 hours leaving 20,000 people homeless.

Last summer saw the paradox of flooding and drought across Europe in some cases coincident. In Emilia Romagna, the flood followed drought, reducing the land’s ability to absorb water.

On course for 1.5

1.5 degrees centigrade sets the threshold at which climate change poses significant risks to human health, wildlife and ecosystems. The WMO has warned that the world is on track (66% likely) to breach that threshold by 2027, writes the Financial Times, with the anticipated return of El Niño by the end of this year set to amplify global temperatures. For the past few years, La Niña has had a cooling effect, but in spite of that the general temperature trend has been increasing.

The role of listed companies

MSCI’s Net Zero Tracker has also warned that listed companies are currently on track to burn through their carbon budgets in 3.5 years, according to Business Green. Engineering and Technology reported further on the tracker and its finding that by the end of the century these firms might be responsible for warming of at least 2.7 degrees centigrade.

Ok doomer?

In the face of a breach of the 1.5 degree threshold, the temptation could be to consider all to be lost. That would be both a fallacy and a shame. The WMO itself has intended the report to highlight that more action is required, rather than all is a foregone conclusion, as The I reports.

 

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