Beautiful beachfront houses that are un-insurable and un-saleable?

Here is an interesting article about rising sea levels on the Virginia shoreline.

If you go down aways in the story you will see that insurers will no longer write policies on houses in Norfolk that they would previously insure, and owners cannot sell the houses.

Scientists are saying that sea level rise is going to happen unevenly -- more quickly on the Atlantic coast than elsewhere.

But the effects of climate change on NYC are more likely to be seen in extreme weather, aren't they? When Rita came through last year, there was a fear the the subway system would flood.

That storm blew past NYC, but we're getting more frequent hurricanes with only a .8 degree temperature rise in place right now.

What if the temperature rise goes up to 2 degrees -- the best possible outcome, and probably unachieveable at this point -- but for argument's sake, what if the temperature rise doubles from the current .8 degrees? Won't we see lots more Ritas? Won't one of them flood the subway system?

How long will it take to get the subways running again after they've been submerged? A month? What does that do to the local economy?

What does it do to the value of our real estate?

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/08/norfolk-sea-level-rise

My short answer is that climate change adaptation measures will increase some costs, both public and private, but the increased engineering and operational challenges will be manageable and are not likely to mean big value adjustments.

The other factors driving NYC real estate values (proximity, density, scarcity, business and cultural connectivity and other network effects) are far stronger drivers. And the fact that the city is already intensely valuable means it will be obvious that adaptation measures are worthwhile.

Specifically regarding the subway system, let's remember that it's not all one tunnel at one level, so flooding is a set of localized problems. And the system already handles lots of drainage -- there are pumps removing groundwater seepage and rainwater/runoff from the tunnels every day. There certainly could be increased service interruptions, but worrying about a month-long outage isn't worth your time.

Need more? Read the city's study:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/2009/NPCC_CRI.pdf
Or an earlier DEP report:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/news/climate_change_report_05-08.shtml

Interesting report, uptown Joe, thanks. I found something similar here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05318.x/full

Lots of flooding risks to both public and private property, garbage collection and wastewater treatment problems, and issues with cell towers, electrical lines, fiber optics, etc.

It's true there is a lot of existing value in NYC real estate, but the money spent to protect it would be public money. I'm not so confident that govt revenues will be ample enough to do the job.

Anyhow, we shall find out soon. Latest reports say the warming is happening much faster than anybody expected.

Mmm-mmm, yikes, I am sorry to say. It's real.

The biggest proponent of the skeptic point of view -- Richard Muller -- just came down off his high horse and said that climate change is happening, and humans are the cause -- at least of some of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

bullish for inland living. Buy bed-stuy, sell BPC

If anyone is still following this thread, I wonder if you have any updated responses to this question, esp in light of what happened with Hurricane Sandy. My husband and I recently moved back to NYC after some time in CA and are considering buying an apt in the city in a couple years after we save up a little more. However, one thing that might make us decide not to invest in that way would be the potential for our real estate value to decrease due to the affects of climate change. Since buying in the city is such a huge, and long-term investment, reports of sea levels rising ~2 feet over the next several decades has us wary of investing on an island. Even if we don't buy in a low-lying area, how will real estate prices in NYC be effected overall if parts of the city are underwater and services like the subways, etc are constantly flooding? Anyone seen any studies on this? Part of me thinks maybe values would stay the same or go up because less housing would mean more demand for housing that's not in low-lying areas, but the majority of me thinks that if climate change starts causing regular Sandy-like events, people will start to flee the area meaning values could plummit. Thoughts?