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Why a 1-foot rise in sea level has a bigger impact than you think

Why a 1-foot rise in sea level has a bigger impact than you think
If sea levels rise, let's say a foot in the next 30 years. Okay, well a foot is only like right here why does that impact us? Yeah. So the important thing to remember is that a foot and the vertical is not a foot of loss of shore line. If you go to the high water line that's over here and then you go a foot up from that, it's more than a foot in the horizontal that you get to get that water level raised. If you go a couple of feet you're gonna go even farther still, Let's do this 100 ft. What are we at right now? About 75. Okay. Going to 100, That's it. 100 ft right here. That's a lot of land. And by the time you get up to the levels we're talking around arriving by 2100, you've probably covered this whole peninsula at high tide. All these homes, all these homes would have water underneath them at high tide. And so that comes back to the frequency of flooding the one in 100 year event. Now, something that has only a 1% chance of happening is going to get more and more likely. How likely by 2050 it will be 20 to 30 times more likely. So it won't be a one in 100 year event would be one in five year event kind of thing. And then by 2100 We would expect it to be somewhere between 160 and 530 times more likely. So that means better than annual in most locations around the world.
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Why a 1-foot rise in sea level has a bigger impact than you think
A 1-foot rise in sea level swallows up more coastline than you think.For every 1 foot of vertical rise in sea level, 100 feet of shoreline is swallowed up if the slope is just 1% or more. That's a typical slope for most coastlines. Watch in the video above as Hearst Television’s Chief National Investigative Correspondent Mark Albert demonstrates this. This story is part of Hearst Television's Forecasting our Future initiative, which aims to help educate communities about the local impacts of weather and climate. 'Forecasting Our Future' Full CoverageSurvey: Most concerned about future extreme weather, only half taking steps Why a 1-foot rise in sea level has a bigger impact than you thinkMan loses home to Hurricane Ida, 16 years after grandmother lost hers to Hurricane KatrinaVirtual reality increasingly used to convey climate urgencyAll 'Forecasting Our Future' special reports

A 1-foot rise in sea level swallows up more coastline than you think.

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For every 1 foot of vertical rise in sea level, 100 feet of shoreline is swallowed up if the slope is just 1% or more. That's a typical slope for most coastlines.

Watch in the video above as Hearst Television’s Chief National Investigative Correspondent Mark Albert demonstrates this.

This story is part of Hearst Television's Forecasting our Future initiative, which aims to help educate communities about the local impacts of weather and climate.

'Forecasting Our Future' Full Coverage