Predicting the weather a hundred years out shows Sacramento as ocean front property, which could do wonders for the housing market.
Rising seas called Delta risk
Warming could leave areas swamped, planners told
By Matt Weiser - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Children born today could live in a different kind of Central Valley in their retirement years, one with a great inland sea lapping at the edges of major cities.
It may sound far-fetched, but that could be the outcome of the latest prediction of rising sea level caused by global warming. It's one of the scenarios driving a multipronged effort to plan the future in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Last week, the Independent Science Board of the CalFed Bay-Delta Authority said planners should prepare for 28 to 39 inches of sea-level rise by 2100. That's double the most widely accepted current estimates.
On Monday, new data were presented on how a rise that large may affect the Delta and nearby communities.
Using aerial imaging that reveals surface elevation, Noah Knowles of the U.S. Geological Survey said a 39-inch sea level rise, equivalent to 1 meter, would inundate more than 380 square miles on the edges of the Delta. This could include Sacramento's Pocket neighborhood and parts of west Stockton -- if their levees fail.
"It's noteworthy that they're going to have to be even better protected if this scenario plays out," said Knowles, a research hydrologist who spoke Monday at the California Climate Change Conference in Sacramento.
