Coastal Louisiana Facing Up To 23 Feet Of Sea Level Rise; "In Paleo-Climate Terms, New Orleans Is Already Gone"

[hatrack]

The process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, as the city has reached a “point of no return” that will see it surrounded by the ocean within decades due to the climate crisis, a stark new study has concluded. Ongoing sea-level rise and the rampant erosion of wetlands in southern Louisiana will swallow up the New Orleans area within a few generations, with the new paper estimating the city “may well be surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico before the end of this century”.

Low-lying southern Louisiana faces multiple threats, with rising sea levels driven by global heating, compounded by strengthening hurricanes, also a feature of the climate crisis, and the gradual subsidence of a coastline that has been carved apart by the oil and gas industry. Southern Louisiana is facing 3-7 metres of sea-level rise and the loss of three-quarters of its remaining coastal wetlands, which will cause the shoreline “to migrate as much as 100km (62 miles) inland”, thereby stranding New Orleans and Baton Rouge, according to the study, which compared today’s rising global temperatures with a period of similar heat 125,000 years ago that caused a rise in sea level.

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Billions of dollars have been spent to fortify New Orleans with a vast network of levees, floodgates and pumps erected after 2005’s catastrophic Hurricane Katrina. But the growing threats to the city mean the levees, which already require hefty upgrades to remain sufficient, will not be able to save the city in the long run, the new paper warns. “In paleo-climate terms, New Orleans is gone; the question is how long it has,” said Jesse Keenan, an expert in climate adaptation at Tulane University and one of the paper’s five co-authors.

Keenan said the timeframe available to plan a retreat isn’t certain but “it’s most likely decades rather than centuries”.“Even if you stopped climate change today, New Orleans’s days are still numbered,” he 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.” City, state and federal leaders should begin work to help support people moving away from the New Orleans region in a coordinated way, starting with the most vulnerable communities, such as those in Plaquemines parish who live outside the levee system, Keenan said.“New Orleans is in a terminal condition, and we need to be clear with the patient that it is terminal,” he said. “There is an opportunity for palliative care, we can transition people and the economy. We can get ahead of this.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/04/new-orleans-sea-levels-relocation-climate-crisis

[Botany]

1. "Even if you stopped climate change today, New Orleans's days are still numbered,"

Facts are facts.

[rampartd]

2. they won't be "transitioning me into the economy" at my age.

so i think i will just sit here until the water gets to the attic.

[JT45242]

3. Much of LA still votes for (R) climate change deniers... SMH

They have signed their own death warrants, figuratively, economically, and in some cases literally. The land will be worthless and many will likley die because of more extreme weather.

[hatrack]

4. True, but Teh Libtards were so definitively owned that it makes it all worthwhile!!!

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