Planning for Seattle's climate changed future in early stages

A looong article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Kristen Millares Young: ….The University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group, tapped by the state to lend its expertise to climate change policy, predicted in January that sea levels in Puget Sound could rise by as much as 50 inches by 2100.

That's a worst-case scenario with grim economic repercussions. It's enough to threaten large swaths of more than $1 billion in waterfront investments that the port has made in the past decade. And it's more than 3 feet above the sea-level rise that could be handled by the planned Alaskan Way sea wall's replacement….

… The particular threat is not just from inundation in a linear fashion, but from the increase in intensity from storms and increased flooding, said Ed Miles, the team leader of the UW Climate Impacts Group. Miles said storms now considered once-in-a-lifetime events will happen more often, possibly driving waves over Washington's coastal protections.

By 2100, major sections of the ports of Seattle and Tacoma are within coastal flood zones according to mid-range UW sea-level predictions; nearly all of the seaports are engulfed by the flood zones in their upper range projections...

Seattle skyline with Harbor Island in the foreground, NOAA, Wikimedia Commons