San Francisco Could Get Flooded

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San Fransico is besieged on three fronts. A lack of water could cause drought from the east, although that threat has subsided recently. Experts say an earthquake is bound to hit the city from underneath. From the West, by flooding from the Pacific Ocean. Researchers recently reminded residents that flooding is inevitable unless climate change is altered radically and rapidly.

Another city is troubled by water problems.

The State of California Sea Level Rise Guidance: 2024 Science and Policy Update offers several sea level scenarios. Under the “intermediate” forecasts, sea levels would rise 3 feet by 2100. “This scenario is driven dominantly by high emissions scenarios, and thus higher warming levels,” the authors wrote. The “high” estimate, which the authors think is much less likely, is that the rise over the same period would be 6.6 feet. The “high” future would be marked by a very rapid increase in the rate of global warming, a theory that is not foreign to many global warming scientists.

If the research is taken at face value, much of San Francisco will be underwater by 2100. Storm surges driving high winds at high tide would destroy some of these areas much earlier. The areas in question run from China Beach inland to US Route 101 and 12th Steet. Floods would reach as far inland as the Mission Hill District. The property value destruction would be immense. Presumably, this process would be spread over enough years so that the threat to human life would be small.

Discussions of city flooding due to climate change usually include Miami, Tampa, New York, and New Orleans. San Francisco is rarely on the list. The new California Sea Level Rise Guidance shows how much of a mistake that omission is.