A new report, titled “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,”
details climate change effects that could be disastrous for Florida, according to one of the study’s co-authors.
According to the report, which was published by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, more heat waves, heavier rains and worse cyclones are likely effects of climate change.
One of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Harold Wanless, warned the Public News Service that by the end of the century, South Florida may be entirely uninhabitable.
“There is consensus that Miami-Dade County will be abandoned, basically, by the end of the century,” Wanless told the News Service. “Mumbai will be abandoned – 15 million people, Atlantic City – you name it. With a four- or five-foot rise in sea level, most of the deltas of the world will be abandoned.”
According to Wanless, South Florida has seen a nearly 10-inch rise in sea level since 1930 — about eight times the rate over the several thousand years before that.
Via the News Service:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott told reporters last year that global warming and climate change are unproven. Scott’s office did not respond to a request for comments on the report.
Wanless says the water is lapping at Floridians’ feet.
“We’re at levels now that we haven’t seen for 600,000 years or so; we’ll shortly be at levels we haven’t seen in over a million years, at which time sea levels were about 100 feet higher than they are today. That’s where we’re heading.”
Wanless says he hopes Scott will get the message, adding that the governor’s own home in Naples would be swamped.
