Map Shows States Most Vulnerable to Sea Level Rise

Desert Gypsy's picture

Wunderground, 6/25/13, Terrel Johnson

In a warming world with rising sea levels, where will be the least vulnerable places to live?

As you can see in the image of the map below, the high-elevation states across the West and Midwest fare best, while the future of the comparatively lower-elevation states in the Southeast and Northeast (especially in New England) is a far less rosy one.

Map of U.S. states above sea level, by volume

Link: Wunderground.com

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Map of vulnerable states to flooding

pjtuttle's picture

What do the different colors of each state mean? Why isn't there a "key" to find out? I've been to the Weather Underground link and the FB link, and NOWHERE is there a "key" explaining the colors!

I'm assuming the colors have

Featherstoned's picture

I'm assuming the colors have no special meaning. Like a lot of other maps, the states/countries are different colors to add contrast over boundries. 

I'm glad to be in Utah

We are where we are to be

David Porter's picture

However, it would be nice to be able to make sense of this mapping??? The states would not be in color if it wasn't meaningful. And what happen to the S/E states? Are they all going under?

Someone please update this for us

David Porter

Author of the series

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

As far as I can tell....

TheFlashRon's picture

This map is 2 dimensional, like there are no details at all. Was this map created on an Atari? Now that we are seeing major earth changes taking place, common sense alone would guide us inland from the coastal areas and up in elevation to, let's say, the 2500' level and not near any volcano either. Looks like San Fransisco Bay Area is no more. Hope this lack of detail keeps people from focusing on this timeline thus bringing these changes into manifestation because when you change the way you look at things ~ ... The things you look at change!

Namaste'

I don't think the layout is meant to be taken literally

Featherstoned's picture

From what I understand, each square/pixel represents ~400 sq. mi. of land above sea level AFTER sea levels rise. It's not meant to show what the states will look like. Just a quick way of understanding how much of each state will be above sea level after a rise.

I see it as more of a graph then a map.

Hope that helps :)