The Hurricanes of the Future

water comes down from the sky, that's the storm apocalypse. Yeah, well, we're gonna specifically talk about hurricanes today, the future of hurricanes, because we we You may have heard various climate change scientists, climatologists, and various computer scientists talking about models that are trying to predict what the world will be like in the future due to climate change. One of the things that

always pops up is the discussion of hurricanes. So we wanted to kind of take that topic and explore what we know and what we don't know, talk about like what are we fairly certain about, what what sort of elements are really kind of just a best guest scenario. Yeah, I think it's worth pointing out as a disclaimer at the beginning of this episode that there seems to be a little bit less agreement here than on climate change generally. People sometimes seems to seem to confuse these two points.

But just to reiterate something we've said on the show before, that the planet is warming. There's really no disputing, but exactly what the effects are going to be, or at least what some of the effects are going to be, is still being debated. Oh absolutely, because tracking trends is pretty easy data collection, but and by pretty easy, I mean ridiculously difficult to a global effort in this particular case.

But but yeah, trying to figure out what that's going to do to global weather systems or very specific weather systems is whole that's that's a whole other separation. And we've not to say that we can't say anything interesting about is that that scientists can't create accurate models. I think that we very likely can. But just to establish at the beginning, this is not as settled as climate

as climate change science in the general sense. Yeah, yeah, And it's something that you'll if you if you read into it, it's something that the climatologists themselves will say upfront, usually like they talk about which model they're using, right, because they the models are doing their best to take as many factors into account to simulate what would actually

happen in the real world as possible. But we've talked about it before how weather systems are notoriously complex and intricate, and we don't have a full understanding of how their systems work on a on you know, like on a on a part where we can actually definitively say here's

what is going to happen. Here is when it will happen. Yeah, But with all those qualifications in mind, I think it would be really interesting to talk about what scientists are saying about what the storms of the future are going to are gonna look like. Yeah, So going with hurricanes, let's talk about, you know, laying down the groundwork so we understand what we're what we're saying when we when

we actually use the word hurricane. Uh. I think most of us have an idea of what that is, especially those of us who live along the East coast of the United States, but the word cyclone is also often used. Previous Florida resident, Yeah, someone who you know, I've certainly seen my share of of weather effects that came to us courtesy of a hurricane. Of course, Atlanta is so far inland that we don't get the uh, the brunt of any sort of hurricane hitting landfall, but we definitely

get the storms that are a result of that. Oh. Yeah, it's interesting if you've never lived in a part of the world that gets tropical cyclones, you know, hurricanes whatever, coming in. It's it's interesting to see the dregs of a hurricane. They come through here all the time. Somebody else south of us got hit really hard, and we

just get a bad rainstorm pretty much. And of course, you know, recently we've seen hurricanes, Like recently, as in the last five years, we've seen hurricanes hit some places that normally don't see much hurricane activity at all, like New York City, because the storm generally will disperse before it ever gets there. Yeah, So let's talk about what is going on with hurricane formation and why they disperse

when they get to certain areas. First, we have to talk about atmospheric pressure, right, So when the atmospheric pressure reaches a certain level, the goddess of the equatorial Ocean becomes very angry, you know, I was hoping that by forbidding the mystical acts from the studio we would avoid such things, but apparently there's just no stopping you joke. Wait, are you saying that the weather is caused by physical forces?

It is, in fact caused by physical forces, and not those that emanate from some soggy guitar to the bottom of the ocean. I've been misinformed. Will please enlighten me, Johnathan. So atmosphere has weight, right, It's as we say, I feel like about once a week on the show, like the air is not thin. It is soup. Yes, it is soup, and that means that the soup towards the

bottom is being squished by all the soup at the top. Right, So, the air towards the bottom of towards the surface near the surface of the Earth, whether it's land or ocean, is being compressed by the air molecules that are higher up, and the air closer to the surface is being warmed not directly by the sun, but rather through the heat that is emanating from the warmed land mass in ocean water, So the sun warms the water and the land, and it radiates the heat back up into the air. Right.

So then as air heats up, the molecules that make up the air start to move apart from one another. They start getting active, right. The molecular activity increases, that is what heat is ultimately and uh so the density of the air decreases as a result the molecules are moving apart. Now, this creates the movement of the less dense air rising up while denser air cooler air sinks down to take its place. You know, nature of horrors

of vacuums. So it's not like the warm air can just rise up and nothing else happens, which is good because otherwise we would not be here. Um. But this movement is called the pressure gradient force. Now, over the oceans, warm air also happens to have a lot of water vapor in it. Huda thunk. Yeah, so waters evaporating it becomes part of the air here. And as warm air and water vapor together right is up the vapor begins to condense once it hits a certain temperature and then

you get storm clouds forming and eventually rain. Uh. Condensation, by the way, releases heat as a byproduct. This is not a big surprise. To form water vapor. We add heat to water. When water vapor becomes water, it releases heat that that energy has to go somewhere we cannot

obviously create or destroy energy. Um Now, that's called the latent heat of condensation, and that heat warms the cool air that's up at the top and causes that to rise, and that starts to create a vacuum effect that pulls even more warm air from the surface up through this channel. Right now, as this continues, more heat and water it gets moved through the atmosphere, and this movement begins to

create a circular pattern of motion. So this is kind of like what you see when you open up a drain and you watch the water, you know, circled down the drain, similar to that, but this one is actually determined by the Coreo Less effect, whereas the drain water is not. Well, yeah, I mean it, the Simpsons was wrong. Yeah, there's a tendency, but it's but a drain is too small of a water system to be affected by exactly.

The Coriolis effect is real, and it is because of the rotation of the Earth, but it generally only affects large systems, not not your toilet or the sink um on the northern hemisphere, storms rotate counterclockwise. In the southern Hemisphere, they rotate clockwise are as I once saw in a set of instructions to build a fan. And I am not making this up antique counter clockwise, which seems a

little very precise. Turn this anti counter clockwise really not just clock uh So, then, also, especially near the equatorial regions of the Earth, you have converging winds near the surface of the water. These are colliding with one another and pushing even more warm air upward. This increases the rotational speed of the storm. And strong winds at high altitudes move the warm air out from the center, and

that's what becomes the eye of the storm. So you've got this relatively calm area in the very center, and then this sort of tumultuous area, especially the area right around the center that the winds speeds there are at their highest, but it then radiates outward. Um Now, if you have different speeds of wind along these various elevations of the storm system, that's what's called wind shear. When you have wind shear, it actually inhibits the growth of

a storm. So if you've got you know, winds from the east, uh and and uh and north hitting at one point at one speed, and they're hitting at a totally different speed at a different elevation along that storm system. It takes more energy for the storm system to grow, and it's less likely to become a hurricane. UH. If all that air is all that wind is blowing at the same speed, then it's more likely to turn into

a hurricane and get stronger. Now Out, as that warm air's moved from the center, cool air rushes down to replace it. High pressure air is pulled into a low pressure center. That increases the wind speed even more, and that's when you start actually getting into the realm of a hurricane. Now, only a few storms out in the ocean ever reach hurricane status, like out of all of them.

If you're from a percentage basis, UH, it may be that you might have a hurricane season where you have an abnormally large number of hurricanes, but if you look at the overall number of storms, they'll still be relatively small percentage um. Most storms tend to die out before they reach that level. So here's the general categorization. UH. First, you've got the tropical depressions. This does not mean that

people in that area are starting to feel kind of gloomy. Well, it's cloudy out, I suppose, yeah, it could be like man, I booked our vacation and it's just raining. No. Tropical depression are marked with wind speeds that are less than thirty eight miles per hour or around sixty one KOs an hour. Then tropical depressions can grow into tropical storms. Those have wind speeds that range between thirty nine and seventy three miles per hour or sixty three two d

seventeen kilometers per hour. Tropical storms then can grow into hurricanes. Now, your basic hurricane, like your Category one hurricane, has wind speeds greater than seventy four miles per hour or a hundred nineteen kilometers per hour. But we do classify hurricanes here in the United States in five categories. Australia is a little different, but US it's five categories. It's also a five category system in Australia, but they use different criteria.

So Category one hurricane here in the US is the weakest. They have wind speeds between seventy four and nine pur or a hundred nineteen hund fifty four kilometers an hour. Meanwhile, if you go to the other side, of the scale. A Category five storm, which is one you do not want to be in. It is with wind speeds greater than a hundred fifty five miles per hour or two hundred fifty kilometers an hour. So the winds are bad, right, the winds are incredibly damaging, but that's not necessarily the

most damaging part of a hurricane. In fact, that now they are responsible for what could be the most damn damaging part of a hurricane, but it's not a direct relationship. We're talking about storm surge. So storm surge is where you get it's water. Yeah, it's just it's just like

a wall, oh water. Storm surge is created because the winds of the hurricane are pushing water outward from the center, and that's where you get like an enormous mass of water just coming in much higher than the normal sea level, even high, much higher than the normal high tideline. So uh, with this, you could say the more powerful hurricanes create larger storm surge. Is not a big surprise. More wind

pushes more water. So category one storm cut tends to cause about a four to five ft rise in the sea level from the storm search, which is that is significant depending upon if you live in a coastal city, that could be incredibly significant. Category five has a storm surge of greater than eighteen feet five and a half meters. That's a huge amount of water, and that's where you're

getting into some really deadly territory. Yeah. And of course, one of the things to remember is that the negative impact of a storm like a hurricane might not always necessarily be just directly related to how powerful it is, like how how fast the winds are or how high the storm surge is. It can also be related to where it hits and how well prepared the places it hits are. Absolutely because like one place might get a tougher hurricane, but it just might be better defended against herricane.

Higher sea walls are better construction material, or or even things that are off the coast, like things like an oyster bed can help slow down wave for nation. Uh. In fact, New York City used to have very healthy oyster beds outside of it used to being the operative term, have we eaten too many oysters? There were there's a walrus in a carpdor that came through and things just got ugly. Right a second, do people eat New York

City oysters. It was more that it was more that things got destroyed, well just destroyed and construction trawling stuff out and things like that. But the oyster menu New York City is finest oysters. You can really taste the brooklet. I like New York City oysters before they were cool. The conditions for hurricane formation are not everywhere. That's why you don't see hurricanes all over the earth. We talked about how in the equatorial region you have these converging winds.

That's one of the necessary features in order to have hurricane formation. Another is that the water needs to be warm. This this warm air and water vapor are key elements. Uh, they are what fee eat into a hurricane's power. And so you need water that's at least twenty seven degrees celsius or about eight degrees fahrenheit in order for hurricanes to actually form in the first place. This is why we don't see hurricanes forming in like the northern Atlantic.

Oh yeah, this is why they happen in the around the equator. Yeah. And as they move around, as they start to encounter colder water or they hit land, then you start to cut off the process that feeds these hurricanes. That warm water vapor is no longer present, So the hurricane begins to dissipate it's it's energy starts to where you know, it's not being constantly refitted. Yeah, it just dies.

So the Hurricane Sandy that hit in New York, one of the reasons why it was able to to be such a powerful storm in the first place was that the water temperatures around that time were abnormally high, high enough so that the storm had not lost a significant amount of power before it made landfall. It also was what they called a hybrid storm. But that goes into far more complex detail than I am prepared to talk about on this podcast at any rate. That's the basic

rules of how a hurricane behaves. And that's like right now. So now we have to transition into talking about what about projecting forward? As we know that climate change is a thing, we know that it is happening and will continue to happen particular point. We can't really stop it.

We can't stop it. What we can do is mitigate how bad it will be, right we can We can do that by limiting greenhouse gas emissions for example, and other means, and we can try to mitigate the potential effects of climate change exactly by making preparations in the places where it's most likely to have the Yeah, yeah, because I mean there there's certain things of climate change that are going to be a real issue for lots of different people. In dry areas, it's likely to get

more dry. In areas that are of a tropical or subtropical region, they might get much more rain than they usually do. Uh, these are just general trends that we may see. But what about hurricanes, Well, this is, like Joe says, really complicated. Right, So pretty much everybody agrees that climate change is going to do something the hurricane. So they agree that it will change the conditions that create hurricanes. But what's not exactly agreed upon is it

is exactly how they will change. Now, most of the models that I have looked at have said that the changes are going to include more intense hurricanes. Yeah, hurricanes with stronger winds, greater sea surge, larger, they'll be um affecting larger areas. And if we see a rise in ocean temperature, we're likely also to see a greater ranging of hurricanes because the conditions will be more appropriate for a hurricane to feed itself in a broader area than

it used to be. It will suddenly be balmy enough and say Scotland to make it happen. Not suddenly, but but Nessie, Nessie might find herself having a bit of a rough day. I know. I've read differing opinions about whether the frequency of hurricanes is going to go up down. Yeah, this is one of those things. And generally speaking, most models, not all, but most models suggest that we are going to see fewer hurricanes form, but the ones that form

will be worse, like they'll be stronger. Um, most models do, not all of them. Uh. So we know that we know that the temperature is going to affect hurricanes. We know this change at sea level is really going to affect hurricanes too, in the sense that it will affect

how they impact us. If sea levels continue to rise, which we expect they will, Uh, then coastal cities that are already maybe just a few feet above sea level are going to be more prone to damage in the case of any kind of storm, not just a hurricane, but any sort of tropical depression or tropical storm can cut create enough of a sea surge to cause massive flooding in those areas, right, So if your city is, you know, ten feet above sea level and see sea

levels rise five feet, that could still hurt you. Yeah, you know. And and also you're going to start eroding those those low coastal areas that help slow down hurricanes in many places before they hit land. And even if you've built barriers, if the sea level rises, the sea level may raise rise above the barrier you built, in which case there's not much of a help there. Uh So, getting back to frequency, like what Joe was saying, we

do have these differing opinions, these differing models. I guess I should say models, not opinions, because it's what the computers are projecting. One expert in hurricanes, it's real bad science to just have opinions. You know, I don't like hurricane so I just don't think they're gonna happen anymore. It's not going to really help. Dr Kerry Emmanuel from m I T created a model that suggested climate change would create more weak storms around the Category one to

two area and increase the intensity of stronger storms. So in other words, his model, yeah, it's a double whammy. It's it's both we get more storms and more of them will be stronger. Uh, that is not great news. Now, granted that's the one that's sort of it's almost of a dissenting opinion than the other models. Right. The other models do suggest that we're going to probably see fewer hurricanes.

One of the reasons is they predict more wind shear, and as I said earlier, more wind shear would inhibit the formation of storms. So the ones that do form could be incredibly intense, but there would be fewer in number. Um. So that one of the reasons. Another is that the differences in temperature between the polar regions and the equatorial regions help fuel some of the storms that then grow

into hurricanes. And if that difference is decreased, because the polar regions are heating up, and we would expect the polar regions to heat up more dramatically than equatorial, we would think the equatorial region would remain more or less the same temperature. It might increase a little bit, but not at the level. The colar regions are the ones. They're going to increase the most, like the most dramatic change in the short term, short term being like a century.

Um it's a relative term, but that if we see that difference decrease, that might mean that we see fewer storms forming initially. So those are the ways that the two models, and they're more than two, but those are the ways different models disagree on what can happen. But both appear to support the idea that the storms we get are gonna be doozies. They're gonna be pretty powerful. And we've been able to do some preliminary measurements but

nothing that is conclusive yet. So, for instance, we know that ocean temperatures have increased slightly since nineteen eighty, by like point three degrees celsius, So the temperature has gone up. Now that predicts that hurricane wind strength should rise on average about a not more in strength and speed really, so one not faster than what they had been previous in the nineteen eighty numbers on average. But how do you measure how fast a hurricane? Well, you can do

it through lots of things like satellite imagery. You can do it through you can actually send measurement tools that if you wanted to do it with precision down to one knot No, you cannot. The margin of error is plus or minus five knots so the measurement here would be within the range of error. So we cannot determine with any accuracy whether or not the prediction has come true because it hasn't been drastic enough for us to be able to definitively say, all right, this is outside

the margin of error. We are sure that this is happening. Um. So that means it's a little too early for us to say through direct observation. But that being said, the information we do have shows that hurricanes appear to be strengthening faster than they have in the past. So maybe even if they're not stronger than they were, they're getting

stronger faster. You mean, from the time of formation to the time they hit hit like category three or category four, it's taking less time for them to grow to those levels than it used to. Uh. So it's ogitionally, the hurricanes today are eating their wheedies, is what we're getting at um And so uh it was found according to NASA that uh, some researchers discovered that storms were attaining category three wind speeds nearly nine hours faster than they

did back in nineteen eighty which is significant. Oh yeah, yeah, that's every hour counts, especially when you're trying to prepare a population for that kind of incoming storm, right, and and and keep in mind also that we only are able to predict potential pathways the storm will follow. We

know the general direction that they'll follow. But that means if you've ever lived in a coastal area and you've seen those projection paths, you see it's like a it's like a triangle that starts from the storm and then and then broadens out. It's a cone of anxiety. Really, it's it's just horrifying, like like lying vaguely within that code,

going like, well, this could anything could happen. Really, Now, if your city is dead center in the middle of that cone, you've got a real good chance of being hit by that hurricane, whether it's head on or by the edge or whatever. Now, we've also seen that global wind speeds have increased over the last twenty years by five percent, So that also suggests that hurricanes may be getting stronger faster, because wind plays such a big part

in hurricanes. But without the direct observation to back up that that or that prediction, we can't say for sure. And as good science dictates, you want to measure, you want to be able to replicate. You want to make sure that your observations in fact represent as close to reality as we can possibly get. So it would be irresponsible for us to say, yes, hurricanes have definitely gotten stronger over the last twenty five years. It just the data seems to be pointing us in that direction, but

we don't have the definitive answer yet. Now we may also see stuff like the jet streams actually being affected, so in other words, the massive UH currents. Essentially, this this this pathway that tends to dictate which way hurricanes go.

That could change. It could slow down, which would mean the hurricane would spend longer out in the warm areas of the ocean, building up stronger and stronger before continuing in to hit you know, land mass or colder water, which means they could have even more energy than we've ever calculated for as a result. So that's a possibility. So this is this all sounds kind of scary. Uh, You get scarier once you start to look at who's at risk. Obviously, if you live in Nebraska, you're probably

not too worried about hurricanes. Well, you might be worried about some other effects of climate change, such as maybe drought or something like, right, and we and we don't. We don't know how climate change might affect things like tornadoes, for example. It may or may not, we don't know. I think I was reading earlier today that there's no evidence so far that climate change has an effect on tornadoes,

but that that was just one thing I read. It could be disputed by others, right, it's it's it's one of those things. Well, from one thing, we we don't know what we don't know. And it may very well be that climate change has no meaningful impact on the number or intensity of tornadoes that we'll see. It's quite possible. But we have seen some studies about who would most

likely be affected by hurricanes in a negative way. Not just not just most likely to be hit by a hurricane, but if a hurricane did hit, which cities would suffer the most damage in a in a monetary sense. So the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or o e c d crunched the numbers back in two thousand thirteen to figure out which coastal cities are most at risk

due to rising sea levels and intense storms. Guang Shao, which is a port city northwest of Hong Kong tap the list, but there were other cities that were on it like Miami, New York City, New Orleans, Mumbai, Nagoya, Tampa, Boston, Shinzhen,

and Osaka. We're all on that list. And this is this is essentially saying, these are the cities that, if they were hit by a hurricane, would suffer the most damages monetarily, like, yeah, it's not um it's not measuring the strength of hurricanes that could potentially hit there, just the fact that if they do get hit kind of it all. Yeah, exactly, it's they could have miss to lose.

It's like saying, you know, if this city were hit by an earthquake, this is how much and and it was an earthquake of a significant string, this is how much damage would happen Because they don't prepare for earthquakes

structurally prepared, right exactly exactly. Yeah. So they also looked at comparing the the expense of damages to the g d P of these various cities, the gross domestic product of these cities, which, by the way, if you want to learn more about GDP, how stuff works as a video about it, Yeah, you can go to brain Stuff show dot com and find an excellent video that Jonathan hosted, and did did you write that one? Joe? Joe? Well,

there you go. Yeah, and so two of them yeah we we and and Lauren was there, so probably she is. She is. She makes sure that I say the words that Joe wrote because otherwise I go off script and terrible things happened. So when we look at the comparison of damages to g d P, the the list changes up a little bit. Guang Shu is still top of the list, but New Orleans is on there as well,

but there's also guayan Quild from Ecuador. I apologized, by the way before mangling the pronunciation of these cities ho Chi Minh City, um Abba, Johan jan Jing, Mumbai, cool Now which is in Bangladesh, Palm Bang which is in Indonesia, and shin Zhen. We're all at the top of that list. So essentially, these are the cities that could least afford this sort of disaster. And you know, Guang Show was

on the both lists, So that's that's rough. Um. Now, the cities that are predicted to have the greatest increase of risk of flooding are those that currently have a low risk of flooding. And the reason for that is these are cities that have not invested in infrastructure that would be protective against flooding from sea search because traditionally

they haven't been in the pathway of hurricanes. But as we've said, one of the consequences of this climate change is that we're going to see more cities that traditionally would not really be in the path of a hurricane potentially find themselves smack dab in the middle of one. So those cities included Alexandria in Egypt, Baron Kila in Colombia, Naples in Italy, and Sapporo in Japan, and Center Domingo

in the Dominican Republic. So those are all cities that could potentially suffer severe flooding, uh, largely because they are unprepared for it. And you know, again, if you live in a place where a natural disaster rarely, if ever occurs, it doesn't seem to make any sense to prepare for it. Right Like here in Atlanta, we do live not that far from a fault line, but we rarely get an earthquake that's even strong enough for us to feel like

earthquakes do happen but we almost never feel them. I think there have been two that were, you know, of a great enough magnitude to notice. Since I've lived in Atlanta and that's been like twenty years. So it wouldn't make sense for us to build everything in Atlanta to withstand massive earthquakes. It just doesn't happen. Same sort of thing for cities that traditionally have not been in the path of hurricanes. Um we all. I've also looked at

some other lists. Accu weather actually looked at They looked at it a different way. They looked at the cities that are most likely to be affected by a hurricane in any given hurricane season. They actually had it by a percentage of how likely within a hurricane season any of these individual cities would be hit and looking just here in the US, just here in the U S actually just here on the US and on the East coast.

So the top five were Miami and Key West, both in Florida, Cape Hatteras which is in North Carolina, Tampa back in Florida, and New Orleans. So these would be the places that statistically are most likely to be hit by hurricanes simply because of the path that hurricanes currently take um So, if you look at those two lists with Miami being at risk, it's been identified as being

at risk for lots and lots of damage. Like they they've not been hit by a massive hurricane in a while, but that's that's a warning sign because they're also one of the more likely cities to be hit. So those two in combination, plus rising sea levels and increased hurricane intensity, tell you that the people of Miami have some big concerns about this. Um So, obviously it's time to start thinking about ways to prepare and solutions. Yeah, and and

sadly there are no easy answers. Well, I've got one. I think it's pretty good. Okay, Yeah, I think we're we're as a country, pretty good at claiming we're going to build a wall. So I think we should build a wall along the southern and eastern coast of the United States that stretches up to the top of the atmosphere, and then that would just block top of the atmosphere, and that would just block any incoming storm. The shade

from that would be phenomenal. Uh. Yeah, that's not likely to happen because it I can't imagine it being physically possible for us to build a structure of such height. Where's your can do attitude joke? And they can don't for that one. The plus, obviously there'd be way too many problems with that, clearly. I mean, first of all, just redirecting all the flights. Look, if I'm gonna go to Mexico, I don't want my flight to Atlanta to have to take me all the way through like Oregon,

so I can get around this wall. Um. The the sea walls are something that that cities do build in order to protect against sea surge and things like that. Massive waves of sea barriers are are a known UH solution to these problems, but they are temporary solutions, particularly

in the era of sea levels on the rise. Yeah, So imagine you're in a coastal city and you're in one of these danger zones where the sea levels are expected to come up to where they might be sloshing in on your town, and the local solution is, well, we're going to build some sea walls. Doesn't That doesn't keep the water from slashing up on your town, right, That's not very reassuring. No, the sea walls are great

for protecting against sea surges. If the sea level itself is is, you know, not going to be on the rise. It sounds like a temporary solution. Is a temporary solution. It's one of the ones that New York City when, uh, in the wake of Sandy, they were looking at ways to prepare in case this should ever happen again, and sea walls were one of the things they were talking about.

But a lot of experts were saying, you know, guys, this is at best a temporary solution that will just stave off any massive disaster for the short term, but it's not a long term fix. And if that means that we procrastinate, that we don't adopt tougher but more realistic solutions, then we're just inviting disaster further down the line. Well, so what's a what's a realistic solution for something like this?

I mean, we can't none of our Babba yaga. We can't just like put chicken legs on our hut and raise it up in case of danger. That's an excellence. I'm so glad you made that reference. Babba yaga. Uh. Well, elevating buildings is one of the ones. One of the things that people have suggested. Now granted, that does not work in a super dense urban environment like New York City, Right, you can't expect to suddenly be able to raise everything up.

Like even if you were to say, all, right, here's the deal, all of your front street entrances are now going to be a third floor basement, and we're going to move all the entrances up to We're gonna go up several floors. That's gonna be your front door, and we're gonna build up from there so that we have

effectively grown higher than what the sea level is. That is maybe a solution for some communities, but not for a place like New York City, where you've got millions and millions of people who would be displaced by that kind of action. But but it mostly refers to like making sure you have things like park space and and other things that are right along the coastline as opposed to housing, because the coastline is the obviously going to

be the first place affected by sea surge. Uh, you know, it's these are tough things where it requires massive redesign and and relocation. Relocation is a the other big possible solution. It's another tough one. They the scientist I was reading referred to it as managed retreat. Yeah, to say like wonderful, uh, wonderful euphemism. Well, the point was I said, like, this is not going to change, it's going to continue, it's going to get worse. And and so your beautiful beach

front property is not going to be a plus. No, it's gonna be it's gonna be beyond beach property at that point, it's gonna be ocean property. Uh, not ocean front, but in the ocean. And so it's one of those deals where you know, you have to really seriously look at the consequences and say, we are going at some point we're going to have to move people out of here. We can't perpetually keep everyone here. It's just not possible. It's not a realism. We gotta figure out another another solution.

So what we have to do now is think about what that solution is so that when it gets closer to the time when people have to move, they actually do have a place to move to. It doesn't do us any good to say, well, we'll figure that out when it comes, because then they'll just have another chaotic

mess on our hands. So the the um the suggestions I've seen have been start putting into place a plan for managed retreat, perhaps even going so far as to create a system in which people who own a house will be guaranteed a location in this new place like that is they will have they will still have a home because the land that they owned will now be transferred to a different spot. But that's I mean, think about it, millions of people. That is not an easy

thing to manage. Look at any population density map. Where where the most people gathered there along coastlines? Yeah, yeah, I mean you know it's it's it's it's where trade happens. It's where gentler weather traditionally has happened. Oops. Yeah, well, and and you know there's there's just one of those things like that. It's it's people are drawn to the ocean. It's pretty. It is pretty. I mean I know that when I go on vacation to any ocean area, I

want to have a house that has ocean views. Right. I don't want to be one block back and I can hear it, but I can't see stuck facing. Yeah, I don't want that. So I mean I get it. And and and I live in a I happen to live in a city where I have the luxury of not having to worry about as early as everyone else does. Uh, not to say that Atlanta would be completely immune. I

mean we live on a piedmont. We're not in the mountains yet, so um, if the sea levels rose truly dramatically, it could get to the point where Atlanta would become a coastal city and imagine that. But yeah, that's another thing to to worry about. That the solutions that you pick may not be long term. Even in that case, you would have to really look at the elevation of land and how far away from sea level is it and uh, you know, would it be affected by that

same rise and sea level. I think the solution is we just all moved to the Himalayas it's called the water world contingency. Yeah. Yeah. And and then on top of that, of course, you have to start thinking about the the other infrastructure, not just the buildings, but the but the sewer systems, the electrical systems. Yeah. We saw this in New York City as well, the massive problems they had with their power grid and the subway systems. That we have to make sure that that infrastructure can

withstand something like a massive flooding. Uh and you know, we've probably talked about it more on tech stuff than here on forward thinking. But the power grid, particularly in the United States, is very much a patchwork sort of thing, and some of that patchwork dates back to the dawn of the electricity age. So you know, yeah, an upgrade is sorely needed. It's just one of those things that when you get it in place and it works, it's

hard to justify the expense of changing it. Yeah, it's like, well, this is close enough for right now. So it's it's meeting our needs and yeah, it's stuff breaks, but we can fix it pretty fast. Well, yeah, we can fix it pretty fast under normal conditions, but not in the wake of a hurricane necessarily. So this has been, you know,

really interesting to look into. It's one of those things that I still think we have the complete capability to make these decisions and make them in a way that has the least possible negative impact, but only if we

start thinking about it earlier rather than later. The longer we hold off on coming up with viable solutions for people who live in these these cities that are at risk, the harder it's going to be when that time comes when we get to a point where we have to make the call of all right, that's it Miami, that's it for Miami. You know, we've got to move everybody from there. So kind of the opposite of Miami. Yeah, yeah, you know means I got to rethink where I'm retiring.

So there's that. But anyway, this has been kind of a you know, a darker episode in many ways, but it's one that is necessary. I think one of those where you know, one it's necessary for us to maintain optimism and to to apply that to solutions so that we get you know, not denialism, not to say, optimisms to the point where we don't accept what's happening it. But yeah, but before we can come up with solutions for this kind of thing, we have to we have

to be thinking about it. We have to be aware of it exactly and not let it overwhelm us, but rather have it inspire us to innovate in a way that that that solves a problem or creates a solution that is going to be the least negative. If you are a true cynic, I'm an optimist. I'd like to think that we could come up with a really super cool way of addressing this. Um, I just think that we have to start thinking on it now. We can't wait. I think robotic chicken legs on all of our buildings

apaches that I get a big thumbs up from the way. Yeah, and if you know, I've always I've always enjoyed the swamp, So I think having a swamp house that can move around and the swamp is pretty awesome. Now I think where you're just in a Muzaki film. Yeah, probably that's okay. I'm alright with that. Well, guys, if you have any suggestions for future topics that we can tackle here on Forward Thinking, I recommend you write us and let us know.

The email addresses f W Thinking at how Stuff Works dot com, or you can drop us a line on Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook. At Twitter and Google Plus, we are f W Thinking. You can search the term f W Thinking and Facebook. Our page will pop up. You can leave us a message on that page and we will read it and we look forward to hearing from you, and we will talk to you again. Releasing for more on this topic and the future of technology. This is Forward Sinking dot com h brought to you by Toyota.

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