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The state did warn us
By adamg on Thu, 10/29/2015 - 1:25pm
Earlier this week, whichever imp runs the signboards on Morrissey Boulevard programmed the one heading away from UMass to warn of ghoulish tides over the next few days.
Walking along Boston Harbor near the Aquarium at lunchtime today, Jason Richardson discovered they weren't kidding:
Scottie Campbell discovered the nearby Long Wharf being swallowed up by the sea:
Another view of Long Wharf by the New England Aquarium:
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Comments
Every time I see the tide like this...
I think of the billions of dollars in investment going into the South Boston Waterfront and think to myself "how is there not going to be incredibly costly damage down here when these tides finally align with a long duration fetch that pushes a lot of water up into the Inner Harbor?"
I dare not even think about what might happen if the sea level increases by a foot or more.
On the bright side, LOOK AT HOW CLEAR THAT WATER IS! With water like this, one less Willie Horton and one less tank ride, Mike Dukakis would have been president!
I agree with most of what you
I agree with most of what you've said, though I'd hope that anyone building something more substantial than a walkway would raise it up a few feet; that seems to be the general trend.
As for the clear water, there's a good chance it's mostly rain water. We had a lot of rain yesterday, and fresh water likes to sit on top of salt water.
Irony...
that the "nascar" race that will generate greenhouse gasses for no other reason than entertainment is being run in an area that has the most to lose from sea level rise. Sustainability is a buzzword that is thrown around too much because when the rubber meets the road, it is money that talks.
I've said it for some time.
I've said it for some time. With all the talk of rising waters and the new flood maps, the new building on the waterfront is opposite of what we're being told. The new flood maps indicate many of these new buildings are going to be in trouble.
Why would the city push for this development and at the same time tell us that due to global warming, parts of the waterfront will be underwater.
Ever go to the ICA?
There is a reason that nothing really valuable that can't be easily moved is on the first floor. It is designed to flood.
Frankly
this is why I've gotten tired of the Climate Change crowd. Every time there is a particularly destructive flood, storm, drought, fire or other weather phenomenon, a significant number of them sit there gloating about how they were right about climate change and how deniers are stupid.
Yes, the climate is changing, and yes, you were right. That's awesome! Now are you going to rest on your laurels of being right, taking glee in the misfortune of those whose properties were destroyed and in some cases, lives lost, or are you going to start proposing solutions as to how we can make modifications to adapt to the new climate patterns with the least amount of human suffering?
I see very little in the way of practical solutions being proposed, such as changing development codes, planning how to salvage mass transit systems against increasingly bad storms, or planning how to relocate people and businesses with as little disruption as possible to adjust to changing climate patterns (moving farming from the newly-very-dry California to the newly-very-wet Texas region, or helping ski resort owners leverage their land for another business as snow patterns change.)
People are doing things
You might want to look at changes over the past few years in the building code - or look at the filings now required by the BRA on climate factors.
About that laurel resting
I for one, sure as hell hope that no one is doing that because like it or not, we are all going to pay for allowing people to build things in places where things shouldn't be built (and informed people have known about the problem long before Al Gore and the MSM picked up on it).
OK Ms. or Mr. Anon,
...this is why I've gotten tired of the Climate Change Denier crowd (poster boy, Senator James Inhofe). Every time anyone including scientists, politicians, and concerned citizens have reacted with alarm to the accumulating evidence of human-induced variations in weather patterns, the Deniers accused them of being Chicken-Little crybabies whining about nonsense as a way of legitimizing and advancing their anti-capitalist socialist agenda. The practical solutions you mentioned were proposed by these "alarmists" from the beginning, but were dismissed by the Deniers as an assault on the public purse and a threat to American freedom. Now the climate skeptics have moved from complete denial to refusal to acknowledge a human factor. Now that we can at least agree there is a problem, whatever the cause, there's a greater possibility a solution can be found, or at best, a way of coping that most effectively contains the damage.
Maybe the only thing that can keep large portions of the city dry would be a gigantic equivalent of The Thames Barrier, built to protect London from North Sea tidal surges. I can imagine a huge systen m of dykes stradding the Boston Harbor Islands. Can't imagine where the billions of dollars it would take to build such a thing would come from though.
Money is the easy part
Billions of dollars? Heck, the feds have printing presses, or, even better computers that can just wire the money into bank accounts. Meanwhile, Boston has a few unemployed people, and there are a couple of concrete factories that still have idle capacity. If we can't find a better purpose to put all that idleness to good use, then Boston Harbor Dykes seem fine to me.
Hafencity, Hamburg
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011536.html
I had the pleasure of getting to visit this project back in 2008.
They ended up having some flooding as seen in the image below.
http://www.worldchanging.com/Am%20Sandtorkai_Flood_1.jpg
Hamburg is much swampier
Did you know placing a dam on the Charles was inspired for what Hamburg did for flood control back in the 1800's? The dam controlled flooding and allowed for really expensive housing and life science buildings to be built.
Hamburg is like Venice and Rangoon, cities that today would never be built in the location that it is built owing to the geography of the place.
Boston's geography is different than these other cities with more hills. Of course there are low lying areas of the city, but please remember, Boston can much easier deal with future flooding concerns owing to its geography of the harbor.
Hamburg, like New York's waterfront faces directly into the past of the worst of ocean storms. We have the benefit of a deep harbor and island chain system to counter most storm surges.
Oh interesting!
I did not know that! I know what I'll be googling later at home!
Kinda reminds me of a tour I took in Berlin of the Dutch Embassy. We were on the tour with a few Dutch citizens and was we looked over the Spree River at the locks, theyremarked "Oh that is a very a Dutch canal over there!" Tour guide let us know that the canals were in fact built by the Dutch!
Several new houses have gone
Several new houses have gone up (one is currently going up) on Morrissey, right in the area that floods all the time. When the ocean level rises a couple of feet, they're going to regret building there.
BS
If water comes up to those houses the Back Bay will be underwater. Calm down Captain Planet, the new Morrissey Boulevard houses were built above the flood plain.
Clarendon Canal
Speaking of the Back Bay retuning to its watery heritage, I missed this when it came out but caught it when the BBC ran it about a month later.
I don't see a video named in
I don't see a video named in the article, can you dig it up?