Scientists say Miami could cease to exist in our children's lifetime
Melia Robinson,
Business Insider
22h
617
FACEBOOKTWITTERPINTEREST
Scientists speaking with New York magazine say Miami will disappear underwater within the century if sea-level rise persists.
Shutterstock
Miami, a city of 430,000 people, could disappear within the century if the worst climate-change predictions come true.
New York magazine's
David Wallace-Wells spoke with dozens of climatologists and researchers in related fields for
an investigation on the outcomes of climate change if aggressive preventative action isn't taken. The results were not pretty.
"Most people talk as if Miami and Bangladesh still have a chance of surviving; most of the scientists I spoke with assume we'll lose them within the century, even if we stop burning fossil fuel in the next decade," Wallace-Wells
said.
Located at the mouth of the Miami River on the lower east coast of Florida, Miami's elevation on average is about 6 feet above sea level, according to
CityData.com and
NASA. South Florida as a whole anticipates a
2-foot increase in the sea level by 2060.
Within the century, a combination of polar melting, carbon emissions, and ice-sheet collapses could cause chronic flooding to wipe out Miami — and
as many as 670 coastal communities, including Cambridge, Massachusetts; Oakland, California; St. Petersburg, Florida; and four of the five boroughs of New York City,
according to National Geographic.
This is what Miami Beach looks like today.
In the year 2100, you might need a rowboat to pass through it.
Scientists say Miami could cease to exist in our children's lifetime