# How do I respond to people saying houses near the beach will be underwater soon? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2007, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560 "2007-04-25T06:12:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![blinkingblinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@blinkingblinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkingblinking)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/1 "2007-04-25T06:12:28Z")
How do I respond to people saying houses near the beach will be underwater soon? * * * At work we have access to only about 8 websites. One is a real estate site. Lots of my co-workers love spending hours looking through houses and real estate. I am not really interested. But they have this same discussion every week about how none of them want to buy a house near the beaches in Melbourne because they will be ‘underwater soon’. They are serious about this I am not joking. They try to estimate that a house 100 metres from a beach should be de-valued by $100,000. Please tell me how I should respond to these people. Give me a cite or a quote than can quickly fight their ignorance ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/2 "2007-04-25T07:06:13Z")
[Here](http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2001/atmosphere/atmosphere02-11.html) is a site showing tide gauge data from various Australian locations. Melbourne is not listed as such (unless one of the other named locations is actually a Melbourne location) but Geelong is not far away, and shows an rise of 0.97mm per year, I think. (The pics are rather small). You’ll notice that many of the gauges actually appear to show sea levels falling. So, less than a millimetre per year is not going to put those houses under water any time soon. That site quotes an expected range of between 9 and 88cm rise by 2100, which is such a wide range as to be useless, frankly. ---
**Author:** ![BACI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce73a5/32.png) [@BACI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BACI)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/3 "2007-04-25T08:28:58Z")
They’re idiots. BUT - if enough people listen to them you’ll be able to buy well and clean up wth great, ocean view real estate at bargain prices (for as long as the global warming hysteria lasts). As a Melbournian looking at the monent I’ve got to say Beaconsfield Parade doesn’t appear to be getting cheaper!! Cheers M ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/4 "2007-04-25T09:29:19Z")
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking] How do I respond to people saying houses near the beach will be underwater soon? * * * At work we have access to only about 8 websites. One is a real estate site. Lots of my co-workers love spending hours looking through houses and real estate. I am not really interested. But they have this same discussion every week about how none of them want to buy a house near the beaches in Melbourne because they will be ‘underwater soon’. They are serious about this I am not joking. They try to estimate that a house 100 metres from a beach should be de-valued by $100,000. Please tell me how I should respond to these people. Give me a cite or a quote than can quickly fight their ignorance [/QUOTE] If the hysteria about Global Warming continues, at some point beach property should take a hit. If you buy into the hysteria, short beachfront property. If you don’t accept the data, buy beachfront property…but why would you care what the ignorant think? In any case, if you are looking to buy beachfront property, feed the hysteria. Don’t find ways to dismiss it. ---
**Author:** ![Kayeby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kayeby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kayeby)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/5 "2007-04-25T10:50:09Z")
[QUOTE=BACI] As a Melbournian looking at the monent I’ve got to say Beaconsfield Parade doesn’t appear to be getting cheaper!! [/QUOTE] Oh God. I love looking at the beachfront houses in Middle Park - it’s like property pornography. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/6 "2007-04-25T13:32:41Z")
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking] How do I respond to people saying houses near the beach will be underwater soon? [/QUOTE] It depends on the beach. I notice you’re in Australia. But I can tell you about my local situation–the Texas Gulf Coast. Our coast is low-lying, with a few offshore islands that are essentially really big sandbars. We get lots of tropical weather & and the occasional big hurricane. A big storm tends to destroy anything near the water. But even the smaller storms wash away the beach. Subsidence caused by pumping out underground water can also put properties near the water _under_ that water. But it’s a slower process. And inland areas near bayous (local name for small rivers) becomes increasingly flood prone. However, the water goes down quickly–unlike the tragedy in New Orleans. I live just north of Downtown Houston–which is 30 miles inland. And I’m in the Heights area–founded by those escaping from the yellow fever & malaria that plagued early Houston. So I’m OK. But I’ve seen what happens to coastal properties after a big storm: Piles of matchsticks. I would _never_ build on the beach unless it was a modest vacation place on stilts. Fun for a while–until the sea takes it. Obviously, your situation depends on your local meteorology & geology. [But this was the situation on the Texas Gulf Coast long before people talked about Global Warming.](http://www.1900storm.com/) ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/7 "2007-04-25T13:33:58Z")
You could respond by telling them that the time scale of the changes in sea level is not what most people would think of as “soon.” Projections like the ones in Al Gore’s movie are different from what your friends are talking about because they require a change in the rate of sea level rise (which could occur if enough of the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets melt, but are not certain events in the future) and they require time scales on the order of decades - 2050, 2100 are years bandied about, but no one really thinks “soon” - or even in the next 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/8 "2007-04-25T16:43:26Z")
2050 doesn’t count as “soon”? I dunno about you, but I plan on still being alive then, and if the house I were living in were swallowed up by the ocean, I’d be pretty upset. It seems to me that “not soon” means at least that it’s going to be the next generation’s problem, not mine. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/9 "2007-04-25T19:36:36Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] 2050 doesn’t count as “soon”? I dunno about you, but I plan on still being alive then, and if the house I were living in were swallowed up by the ocean, I’d be pretty upset. It seems to me that “not soon” means at least that it’s going to be the next generation’s problem, not mine. [/QUOTE] How much sea level rise by 2050? The last figure I saw was a few inches by the end of this century. Now, don;t get me wrong- a few inches could lead to some nasty disasters with dykes and whatnot. But “houses being underwater” will require several/many feet, which is not “soon” on any \*human \*scale. \*Geologic scale, \*where 1000 years is as a blink of an eye- that’s different. ---
**Author:** ![Mbossa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Mbossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mbossa)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/10 "2007-04-25T19:55:00Z")
The house doesn’t need to be completely underwater for it to be ruined. The sea only really needs to reach the floor of the house for it to be uninhabitable. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/11 "2007-04-25T20:53:07Z")
This article from the [UK Guardian](http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2480994.ece) may be of interest: **An island made by global warming** > [@](#): > > Until two or three years ago, it was thought that the break-up of the ice sheet might take 1,000 years or more but a series of studies and alarming observations since 2004 have shown the disintegration is accelerating and, as a consequence, sea level rise may be much quicker than anticipated. If Greenland loses half its ice, world sea level goes up by at least 3 metres. ---
**Author:** ![yIIa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/9fc348/32.png) [@yIIa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yIIa)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/12 "2007-04-25T22:05:17Z")
You don’t need to invoke rising average sea level to know that almost all coastal flooding is both predictable and preventable. Instead of stronger levees, the world needs deeper setbacks from the shoreline. The so-called 100-year high water mark is crossed by 5 percent of houses every 20 years. Those are bad odds. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/13 "2007-04-25T23:19:56Z")
> [@Bridget Burke](#): > > I live just north of Downtown Houston–which is 30 miles inland. And I’m in the Heights area–founded by those escaping from the yellow fever & malaria that plagued early Houston. So I’m OK. Yup, that extra 23 feet above sea level should make a difference, mostly. [QUOTE=DrDeth] Now, don;t get me wrong- a few inches could lead to some nasty disasters with dykes and whatnot. [/QUOTE] Um…you might want to rephrase that statement. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/14 "2007-04-25T23:23:31Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] How much sea level rise by 2050? The last figure I saw was a few inches by the end of this century. Now, don;t get me wrong- a few inches could lead to some nasty disasters with dykes and whatnot. But “houses being underwater” will require several/many feet, which is not “soon” on any \*human \*scale. \*Geologic scale, \*where 1000 years is as a blink of an eye- that’s different. [/QUOTE] That depends on whether sea level rise remains constant, though, doesn’t it. The major problem is: what if the **rate** of sea level rise changes? No one thinks (or should think) current rates of sea level rise are much of a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/15 "2007-04-26T00:12:56Z")
> [@](#): > > That depends on whether sea level rise remains constant, though, doesn’t it. > > The major problem is: what if the rate of sea level rise changes? > > No one thinks (or should think) current rates of sea level rise are much of a problem. If I recall correctly, an ice shelf could slip into the sea over a matter of days. Before it falls in, and after, the rate of increase will be fairly slow, but for those few days, it could be quite significant. The question is just when we can expect such a catastrophic event to occur, which is not yet completely modeled. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/16 "2007-04-26T00:23:58Z")
I wanted to be able to give you a few numbers on sea level rise: In the IPCC’s 2001 report: [http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc\_tar/wg1/424.htm#11321](http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/424.htm#11321) They gave 20th century sea level rise as between 1 and 2 mm/year. Really, not a very alarming number. The IPCC went on to estimate that the sea level would rise another 0.09 to 0.88 m (0.3 ft to 2.9 ft) by the year 2100 from both thermal expansion and melting ice. However, since that estimate was published, better information on the rate of loss of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets leads to decreased likelihood that the lower end estimates are correct (the 2001 IPCC report included the possibility that these ice sheets would actually grow, changing sea level by -0.02 m from Greenland and -0.17 m from Antarctica. I don’t think anyone believes that will happen anymore.) Here’s a relevant statement from: [realclimate.org](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/catastrophic-sea-level-rise-more-evidence-from-the-ice-sheets/) > [@](#): > > On the other hand, none of the new evidence points in the direction of smaller rates of sea level rise in the future, and probably nudge us closer to the upper end of the IPCC predictions. Those who have already been ignoring or naysaying those predictions now have even less of a leg to stand on. Coastal managers, real estate developers, and insurance companies, at the least, would be wise to continue to take such predictions seriously.\*\* As Don Kennedy and Brooks Hanson write in the lead Editorial, “accelerated glacial melting and larger changes in sea level should be looked at as probable events, not as hypothetical possibilities.” A sea level rise of 2 ft by 2100 shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. More is possible, but less seems unlikely. By comparison, sea level rose about 0.1 ft to 0.26 ft in the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/17 "2007-04-26T00:24:55Z")
Even absent global warming, isn’t shoreline erosion enough reason not to build on the shore. It seems to me that shorelines are awfully dynamic. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/18 "2007-05-01T20:42:41Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] If I recall correctly, an ice shelf could slip into the sea over a matter of days. Before it falls in, and after, the rate of increase will be fairly slow, but for those few days, it could be quite significant. The question is just when we can expect such a catastrophic event to occur, which is not yet completely modeled. [/QUOTE] Completely true, and not taken into account in the rates stated above. People should expect a _minimum_ sea level rise of 2 ft by 2100, and considerably more should large amounts of ice sheets or ice shelves melt and collapse - which is a pretty unpredictable phenomenon both in magnitude of sea level rise and in timing of occurrence. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/19 "2007-05-02T15:51:22Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] Now, don;t get me wrong- a few inches could lead to some nasty disasters with dykes and whatnot. [/quote] [QUOTE=Jackmannii] Um…you might want to rephrase that statement. :dubious: [/QUOTE] Or at least respell it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560/20 "2007-05-09T02:13:09Z")
I came across an interesting and relevant comment today: > [@National Geographic](#): > > Rising sea level produces a cascade of effects. Bruce Douglas, a coastal researcher at Florida International University, calculates that every inch (2.5 centimeters) of sea-level rise could result in eight feet (2.4 meters) of horizontal retreat of sandy beach shorelines due to erosion. Here: [Science & Nature | National Geographic](http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/big-thaw.html) The 2 ft of eustatic sea level rise we can expect as a minimum could then translate into 192 ft of retreat horizontally along sandy beach shores (and, I should note, 0 ft of horizontal retreat at coastal cliffs.) It’s just hard to see how 2 ft could work when you don’t know the slope of your shoreline, but depending on the shape of their shores, some might need to worry about this while others might not. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-respond-to-people-saying-houses-near-the-beach-will-be-underwater-soon/401560.md?page=2)