YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Rising sea destroys homes, erases beaches in California

16 points geox 50 minutes ago 12 comments

netbioserror 18 minutes ago | parent

I would think the dominating factors in Oregon and California are their uplifted soft geologies. The orogenies that lifted the West have resulted in an elevated, cliff-bounded sandy coastline along the Pacific that has been aggressively eroding for a lot longer than humans have been there.

metalman 2 minutes ago | parent

right, except that humans have fixed the high tide lines over whole geolographical areas and done massive work to redirect almost all of the rivers and streams to agriculture, industry and domestic uses, and stopping most of the sand from reaching the ocean, plus sand use for building is so extensive that there now shortages, meaning much less is reaching the ocean than ever before. those fixed high tide lines are also the collateral for trillions of dollars in loans and investments, and given the tripple wammy described in the article, things could get out of hand in a whole new way.

WillowWithAWand 13 minutes ago | parent

[Insert HbomberguyShoutingAtBenShapiro.gif here]

Animats 10 minutes ago | parent

It's annoying for coastal areas, and a problem for beach houses, but California isn't really that vulnerable to rising sea levels. The Pacific Coast is mountainous and the ground slopes upward in short distances.

Here's the US topo map.[1] Look at vulnerable spots, such as Malibu and Oceanside. Three blocks inland you're 20 feet above sea level. Almost all problems are on the ocean side of the Pacific Coast Highway, which was a marginal place to build anyway.

Cliff edge erosion is an ongoing problem. That's why CALTRANS gave up on Devil's Slide as a road route and built the Tom Lantos Tunnels further inland. Small changes in sea level don't affect hundred-foot cliffs that much, though.

The places that really suffer from rising sea level are river deltas, sitting on deposited sand just barely above sea level. In the US, New Orleans has the worst problem. New York City has problems, and they're building coast defenses against storms. China's coastal cities are mostly on river deltas with really flat terrain. That's why China has to build ports way off shore, reached by miles of bridges, to get to deep water.

[1] https://en-us.topographic-map.com/map-9t5k57/Venice-Beach/?c...

gboss 9 minutes ago | parent

Isn’t the Bay Area quite vulnerable? I’m thinking they’re going to have to build a dam with locks in front of the golden gate

comrade1234 4 minutes ago | parent

The problem with that is that there are rivers and streams emptying into the bay. All of that water has to make it to the sea somehow.

gboss 3 minutes ago | parent

The Netherlands has solved that problem

stymaar 2 minutes ago | parent

I'm used to people assuming California = LA + Bay area, but it's the first time I see someone arguing that they don't count…

chasebank 4 minutes ago | parent

The city of Santa Barbara painted a line through the town 25 years ago saying if we don’t stop global warming, the town will be under water to that line in 25 years…