Why then would you invest at Bay Area-level prices for a condo in a building which cannot keep its lobby dry, already?
The entire Gulf is based on porous limestone bedrock which makes sea walls completely untenable as a solution. Water will find a way in.
QED absent some truly miraculous black swan technological advance, Miami etc. are literally doomed to drown.
WTH are people thinking?
The only thing I can come up with is that it's a temporary parking place for foreign money banked at a loss if necessary to exfiltrate it into the US. :P
>Why then would you invest at Bay Area-level prices for a condo in a building which cannot keep its lobby dry, already?
>WTH are people thinking?
Because the people of Miami simply don't believe you and don't believe that there's any climate change happening. And it's now the official position of the US government that there's no climate change.
The whole city suffers from high tides to the point where they have a different electrical system compared to the rest of Italy. San Marco square is usually under knee-high water; a problem to which solution they spent €6B, but that didn't work out almost at all. Add the fact that the whole place smells like a sewer most of the time, and you have a better picture of what it is like.
It might be a cool place for a 1 or 2 day visit, but definitely not a nice place to live.
So, was it sea level rising or not? You gave some examples of the effects of storms and erosion (which are not new, even in geological time), but didn't actually address the concerns of the person you were replying to.
So, I continued by mentioning barrier islands / coastal cities and what's happening to them.
Exactly, but you failed to mention how "what's happening to them" is in any way related to sea level rise. You made the claim that "flooding keeps getting worse" and "Such events are going to become more regular" but didn't actually back up those claims. Instead, you seem to imply that sea level rise is responsible for some recent observations, despite the fact that even the most extreme projections of sea level rise couldn't possibly be responsible for the flooding you mention (in your own words, those events were the result of "storm surge" activity).
Further, going from 1cm to 2cm or 20cm to 21cm of rise again makes the problem worse. The point is you don't wake up one day and the worlds on fire, just spend slightly more on reconstruction year after year.
NYC was not underwater. A small part along the rivers got flooded due to poor drainage and river water water backflooding the sewer system. That is, water went into the sewers from the rivers and then got pushed up. The water then settled into low areas (basements and such), causing lots of damage.
At no time was any part of NYC "underwater".
The expected sea level rise this century does not (most likely) put NYC underwater at high tide, but it does whenever there is a storm surge associated with high tide [1]. Sandy alone cost NYC at least $19 B [2].
[0] http://www.tribecatrib.com/sites/default/files/images/Ball%2... [1] http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/10/sandy-anniver... [2] https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121126/new-york-city/bloo...
But, this is not just limited to Florida. We now do a lot to keep coastline looking like you're used to. The barrier islands around North and South Carolina are largely man made structures at this point.
However, beach houses are built on stilts and you can keep moving sand so it's not that noticeable. But, the larger context of what's going on is flooding keeps getting worse. NYC for example was underwater in a recent storm doing a lot of damage and largely shutting down the city. Such events are going to become more regular as it goes form Massive storm surge, to normal storm surge, to unusual high tides, to regular high tides. But, NYC is on bedrock so they can use dikes and keep things ok. Other areas like Miami with different geology can't use the same approach.
PS: Also, don't forget, Chicago Was Raised Over Four Feet in the 19th Century. So, if you’re willing to spend a lot of money we can keep building in swamps.