I have been thinking about what this would look like when sea level rises even a little. Picturing a small town on the Oregon coast. You know it’s not like the whole town would be destroyed right away, maybe just like 10% of homes plus a main road gets damaged and a gas station or grocery store. But now it’s to dfficult to live in the town when you have to drive so far around the other way and can’t get groceries. So people start moving away to Portland or Eugene. Now the property values are so low at the damaged coastal towns that they have no money to move with. More people living in poverty packed into the cities.
My point is that it’s not like the entire coast needs to be underwater to completely displace whole towns. Only small amounts of sea level rise can absolutely devastate
oh yeah. i was going to post an article on a similar subject (Rising Sea Levels Will Isolate People Long Before They’re Underwater) but i guess i’ll just drop it here. it’s an under-discussed part of rising sea levels: for a lot of people, it won’t be the sea itself that makes them move, but the consequences that come from the sea rising at all around them. Miami, for example? the groundwater there will be ruined by saltwater infiltration long before the city itself begins to be permanently flooded, although it’s likely much of the city will eventually do that as well.