Climate Change You'll Be Able to Wade In.

There's a term for it, "compound flooding." It describes the perfect storm of flood events when sea level rise is compounded by severe storm events bringing storm surges and heavy rains and it's expected to increase in frequency and severity along the eastern seaboard of North America.

A research paper published in the journal, Nature Climate Change, finds New York City, Boston, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco are vulnerable to repeated inundation.


“Call it a triple threat,” said Steven Meyers, a scientist at the University of South Florida and one of the authors. “What this shows is that there is an increasing risk of compound flooding, from storm surge and rainfall at the same time.”

About 40% of the US population lives in coastal cities – where flooding in the wake of storms is already proving increasingly costly in built-up areas, swamping subway lines and electricity stations.

But the Nature study was among the first to explore the combined risks under climate change of sea-level rise, heavy rainfall and storm surges over broad stretches of the US coast.

Think of it as climate change you can believe wade in.  Most of you reading this post can expect to live long enough to see sea level rise hammer North America's major coastal cities.  While the report is limited to the United States, there are plenty of problem spots for Canada also.  Vancouver and neighbouring Richmond are in the crosshairs.  Victoria's beautiful waterfront is similarly exposed.  Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal are all vulnerable in low-lying areas.

Here's what the greater Vancouver area would look like with 4 metres of sea level rise.