New Orleans hat möglicherweise einen Klima-Kipppunkt überschritten. Aufgrund des steigenden Meeresspiegels werden bis 2070 fast 75 % der Region unter Wasser liegen und eine großflächige Entvölkerung erfordern. Ohne rasche Eindämmung und Anpassung könnten andere tief gelegene Regionen ähnlichen Risiken ausgesetzt sein.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-026-01820-z
38 Kommentare
Abstract:
„With global temperatures poised to exceed the 1.5 °C Paris Agreement threshold—a level that triggered substantial ice-sheet collapse during the Last Interglacial—low-elevation coastal zones face sea-level commitments far beyond current planning horizons. With this geological frame of reference, we examine the impact of sea-level rise on what may be the most physically vulnerable coastal zone in the world using prehistoric and contemporary patterns of human mobility. We highlight the positive aspects of the recently commenced out-migration in this region and argue that the fate of communities landwards of this coastal zone will be decided in the next few decades.“
The city and metro never really recovered from Katrina, you could argue they crossed that point in 2005
Sea level rise is not really much of a threat to south Louisiana compared to the lack of marsh accretion and excess subsidence in the area. Paradoxically, the best fix for this would likely be to just get rid of the levees so that the big river can flood and build up the land with sediment again.
The mouth of the Mississippi should be far west of NO now, only thing that’s kept it in place is the army corp of engineers. And they won’t be able to keep it place forever. NO is a doomed city.
New Orleans should have been abandoned after Katrina. Spending tens of billions on a doomed city should never have happened.
This is the US. Nothing will be done until the last minute, i.e. 2070, and then it will be on the cheap and half-arsed.
I don’t know what to say. Haven’t we been screaming it from the rooftops since Gore?
I read a SciAm article decades before Katrina that was basically “New Orleans is doomed”.
Keeping the city dry causes it to sink even more below sea level. I doubt even the Dutch can save it.
The only thing that might save NOLA would be to turn it into New Venice.
There have been some pretty good plans proposed for mitigation through the years even before Katrina (one by an Engineering department head at LSU, who I knew personally), all of which have been roundly ignored by the state legislature. It will have to come to crisis for the sole reason that no elected officials want to interrupt the gravy train that is tourism (or shipping), or pay for projects that might help the longterm success of the area.
The minute the Mississippi was locked in to a single course and the mouth could not naturally shift over time the area started loosing sediment build up – deltas, and wetlands that buffered it from the sea. It has been on a clock since then. With sinking foundations, a river that sits higher than the surrounding city, loss of build out, and not sea level rise, I’m not sure how anyone can expect anything different.
I grew up in the center of the block on the corner where the 17th street canal failed during Katrina. There is a plaque there now. The house opposite the levee breach on Bellaire Dr ended up parked in front of my home. For decades prior, neighbors’ homes all along that levee were flooding as the levee walls eroded. The last three homes were finding tons of old newspapers resurfacing in the standing water of their backyards from the last time the Army Corps of Engineers had reinforced it.
There is a long storied tradition of doing the bare minimum and unless there are some serious forward thinkers in the state government in the next few years there is going to be a massive crisis in the near future.
they won’t be the first climate refugees in the world. Those will likely come from India or Central America, but they will be the ones that the USA can’t refuse, because they already live here.
I think the truth is we really don’t know when nor can we accurately guess it. Miami, Galveston and New Orleans have been disappearing soon for quite a while.
Oh we have a coastal depopulation strategy in place, haven’t you heard? It’s called “refuse to insure their homes, defund our disaster prediction and recovery services, and just wait for a hurricane to wipe them out.”
„*Arbitrary Place* will be under 600 feet of water by *arbitrary time in future*“ – „scientist“
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New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don’t wanna swim.
So can we learn from the Dutch here?
1/3 of that country is below sea level and they have done the opposite of lose land and depopulate.
“Even if you stopped climate change today, New Orleans’s days are still numbered,”Keenan added. “It will be surrounded by open water, and you can’t keep an island situated below sea level afloat. There’s no amount of money that can do that.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/04/new-orleans-sea-levels-relocation-climate-crisis
Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that this is true. Do you think people aren’t going to just sell their homes and move?
Much of NOLA is already below sea level and has been for decades. Subsidence is the main cause. The question is how much we want to spend on levers and dikes.
It’s a problem the Dutch have solved long ago. Dikes, and later, windmill powered pumps. It requires constant maintenance, but they’ve been holding back the North Sea for thousands of years.
Oh, New Orleans is going to be lost long before then due to increased storm erosion. Rising sea levels are only going to cover its grave.
Louisiana should be able to sue states benefiting from the diversion and damming of the Mississippi River as the main causes of land loss is the reduction in deposition of alluvial sediment caused by these acts rather than erosion or rising sea levels.
remember all the climate deniers bringing up insurance companies and why are they still insuring waterfront land
i do
don’t worry the Louisiana Senate has got this they are focusing real hard right now Gerrymandering the state and postponing elections. That is sure to solve the problem
Seattle is build on top of the old Seattle that was too low. They just made all the 2nd floors the new street level and built up everything to that new height, more or less. Filling it all up to raise the city 10′ or so is doable.
Hopes of solving anything is next to zero in the coming decades once science became politicized and scientists baselessly demonized for being the arbiters of truth. Were cooked
Isn’t Trump’s house built on one of these places? Isn’t Miami already experiencing flooding during high tides? Not that he cares about anything that will happen after he’s gone, but still.
Time to ask the Dutch how they’re surviving under water…
Cities built on river delta sink. Egypt has how many cities we’re still finding sunk under the Niles shifting delta?
I’m never going to get to go to New Orleans, am i
Their solution…continue to elect climate denying Republicans.
These states had no problem with accepting federal money for decades to offset the costs of rebuilding after hurricanes.
They can now fork up the money to bail out homeowners so they can move elsewhere. Which, any successful plan will need. We’re looking at what will be the largest Superfund site in the next 50 years.
It will be problematic way sooner than 2070. Also that.s 44 years just to be clear. Meaning say for example 20 years from now it will be problematic and BY 2070 completely underwater.
I’m sure Louisiana will just try to gerrymander the gulf
New Orleans is sinkin‘ man and i don’t want to swim.
Sure, If we believed some scientist half world should be under water by now.
Joys of paid article access. I’m not spending $50 just to read this. Anyone got a copy of this for free?