If you own property in Florida, that is. A harbinger of much worse to come?
Meanwhile, rising tides have given a St. Petersburg couple new neighbours:
No word yet on whether the mammals have asked to borrow a cup of sugar or a fillet of fish from the Smiths.
I did a post a few days ago, Lorne, about something I've been reading about for three or four years. They're calling it "climate departure." It's a process in which the world will transition from the "old climate" of the Holocene that we've flourished under for the past 11,000 years into a "new climate" of the Anthropocene. It's not remotely linear either. Climate departure is predicted to begin in 2020 and spread until it is complete around 2047.
ReplyDeleteThis "new climate" is one in which every year will be hotter than the hottest year of the "old climate" era. It's a shift into a new temperature paradigm with all the knock-on effects that carries.
One of the areas forecast to first shift (in 2020) is the Caribbean. If Florida isn't in that first wave it won't be too far away from its spread. And that hotter, moister tropical atmosphere will probably have a tangible impact on the severe storm events and tidal surges Florida experiences.
There's a show on the home and garden channel, "beachfront bargain properties" and there are many episodes of people snapping up great waterfront deals in south Florida and the Keys. It's not so much what's in the buyers' minds that interests me as what must be in the sellers'. I'll bet a good number of them wished they had unloaded ten years ago.
We'll know in just a few years whether these "climate departure" predictions are accurate. If they are, you and I, will witness something we thought we would never see in our remaining lifetimes possibly including the first mass migrations in the Americas.
Thanks for the information, Mound. I wonder if, for some people, there will ever come a point when they will recognize climate change as a fact? Or will they believe every 'weather event' is an anomaly, even as they are swept away in a flood, have their homes destroyed by a tornado or hurricane, or perish during a heat wave?
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