https://www.google.com/search?q=seattle+liquefaction+map

Ricka: “However, it doesn’t look to bad by 2100, as we would be at less than 3 feet inundation and 71% of the parcels affected are zoned industrial.”

wheelism: The ability of the human mind to justify irresponsibility is astounding.

To be fair, RickA is correct that Seattle will not be damaged by sea level rise as a great many other places in the world such as the USA’s east coast. At least he made the effort. (Wry grin)

Yes – reference any comment you made about climate change.

RickA: I am not from Seattle, so take this with a grain of salt:

“However, it doesn’t look to bad by 2100, as we would be at less than 3 feet inundation and 71% of the parcels affected are zoned industrial. Looks like about 16 residential parcels would be affected.”

Thank you for the link. The writer’s model is fine as far as what he modeled, but he left out a shit load of other factors. If the problem was *ONLY* sea level rise (in the Pacific Northwest), then Seattle would have a vastly smaller problem than most places on the planet. But Seattle is not at risk only by sea level rise.

Seattle is protected from storm surge about 80% of the time; the North Pacific High Pressure Zone protects against storm surge throughout the Puget Sound region during the summer because it deflects storms to the south (and recently, some times north, to Alaska). When the high pressure zone moves southward in the winter, the fetch of Puget Sound and the region can, and does, cause storm surge. The page you directed me to (thank you) did not account for the fact that in shallow waters such as in Puget sound, the northern channel, and Juan de Fuca Straight, the increased sea level amplifies storm surge by a factor of about 300:1 (the Pacific Institute published a survey on the subject about six years ago).

The problem is Seattle’s fresh water supply, and it’s support infrastructure: they cannot survive the increased storm surge incursion of salt water. Seattle is fortunate in that it has many islands in the way to dampen storm surge— without sea level rise, the odds of storm surge flooding in Seattle are very rare.

Ignoring storm surge, roughly 10% of the human population in and around Seattle will have to relocate. Periodic salt water incursions means far more people will have to relocate. Washington, and Seattle, are expending wealth by adding new infrastructure (tunnels, roads, bridges) in areas that are at risk; that seems irresponsible to me. Far better they spend the funds on contraception, family planning, urban dismantling, and population reduction.

My comments were not directed at tsunamis, but sea level rise generally by 2100.

If you live by the coast and there is an earthquake, I would definitely head for higher ground immediately.

I wouldn’t even wait for a tsunami warming – I would just assume one for every earthquake over about 6.0.

But Desertphile was indicating that the entire city of Seattle would be underwater by 2100 due to sea level rise and I was unconcerned by that scenario, given the data I linked to.

You are free to disagree.