NSW Impact of rising sea levels from climate change on coastal capital cities?

Here's an interactive tool that will let you look at the predicted inundation at the highest tide for Brisbane and other cities under "high", "medium" and "low" sea level rise scenarios: Coastal Risk Australia

It doesn't consider rainfall events and river flows, nor does it consider potential changes in the shape of coastlines, but it is simple to use and a good starting point.

Also useful might be the Brisbane City Plan Coastal Hazard map overlays: Brisbane City Plan 2014 mapping: Coastal hazard overlay | Brisbane City Council

 

Flood maps in each city are good sources. After viewing all of above, I can't find where Brisbane will have big problems.

 

Yep. Insurance companies will use anything to raise premiums.

 

Weather and climate are different. I predict that next winter will be cooler than next summer: that's a climate prediction, and more than 10 days out. I'm pretty confident about it -- how about you? I can't reliably predict whether Wednesday two weeks from now will be cooler than Thursday two weeks from now -- that's weather.

Yes, many predictions have been made that have been bourne out by observations. Here's a graph showing IPCC projections for sea level rise made in 1990 (the grey shaded area shows the range of those projections). The red and blue lines show actual observed sea level rise using two observation methods (from: How reliable are climate models?).

 

Must've left my webcam on as I've been spotted shrugging my shoulders. I feel embarrassed as it actually was a dance move. Data is questionable and not backed up in their own disclaimer. Quite a number of suburbs not showing as affected, but have been. Some suburbs now affected in an odd way for now and 2100. As I said, I can't find where Brisbane will have big problems. Also, if I base my property purchases on this "forecast" data for 2100, I am in the wrong business.

 

If sea levels do rise or land levels subside, it will depend on by how much, as to what and how cities and regions would be affected.
With Brisbane, my perception as to why it hasn't performed as well could be because I feel that Queensland is one of those states where people tend to be more spread out. You have people living on the Gold Coast, Ipswich, Harvey Bay, Sunshine Coast, Mackay, Townsville, Toowoomba, and Cairns as well as Brisbane, whereas Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide seem more city centric. That being said I keep reading that Brisbane is getting a high level of interstate migration from Sydney people who are finding the Sydney market to expensive. Most recently new tenancy laws may deter investors to buy in Brisbane and the economy I am told has been sluggish and the government has some cash flow problems.
The thing I find when I visit Brisbane from Sydney towards summer time is how intense the heat is with the humidity. It probably takes a few months to get used to it.

 

The weather was lovely today. Anyways we usually get a breeze up off the bay by lunchtime most days, so it's usually only awful when we get westerlies. ie no sea breeze.

If it is any consolation for the Southerners, my clean washing smells of grass fire and my backyard birdbath now has an orange tinge to it after the rain on the weekend caked it with red muddy rainwater. We have some things in common with Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra afterall.

 

If this is the case that all these things are going to happen to the planet in the next 30 years (2050), why would the banks give you a 30 year loan. Surely they would knock you back based on these projections and we would have to include rising sea levels, drought areas, heat areas and bushfire areas. Surely the banks would now have a map of all the banned areas where they wont lend. Banks would be the first institution that would ratify or condemn a loan application if they thought that the asset wasn't secure.

 

if government and scientists can’t figure it out, what makes you think financial institutions that have benefited from rapid credit growth and increasing investment will? I think your giving too much credit to the bankers lol

 

It is interesting trying to plan and predict unpredictable things (pandemics etc). In future the weather patterns are predicted to more unpredictable which i think means that things like flooding might have more to do with unusual weather events, more intense rainfall, and therefore impacts may be that places that have never flooded start to flood.

Will the impact of sea level rise be more than storm surge (or are they the same thing). I think slow sea level rise is manageable but storm surge much less so.

 

It’s amazing what humans can do to control and contain nature. I’m honestly not too worried. Though I believe in climate change and I think we need to do something about it, I also believe in human creativity and innovation.

I visit St Petersburg. Amazing city. The northmost metropolitan city of this planet. They built the city to survive harsh cold. Now, with global warming the weather is not so harsh. In return. Snow melts faster and the Baltic Sea has giant storm surges. Last time over 6m wave flooded this city.

So what have they done? What humans do best. The city is all webbed with canals. Water retreats quickly and with minimal demage. It also looks cool like Venice or Amsterdam.

They also built The Saint Petersburg Flood Prevention Facility Complex, one of the largest in the world. Pretty much a retractable dam around the city. Amazing.

Worth a visit to understand what humans are capable of. Ancient city lives on. If we get any issues, I think she will be fine. We can do something at least as good here.

 

There's a great deal that we can do through engineering works and in many areas, we will. However, it is expensive. In some areas, it won't be economically or politically worthwhile to undertake such measures, so we still need to take care in our investment decisions. Townsville City Council, for instance, undertook a sea level rise planning study a few years ago. The conclusions of the study were that in some areas (e.g. Townsville inner suburbs, Townsville north industrial area and Picnic Bay on Magnetic Island), the city should "defend" against sea level rise through engineering works while in other areas, they should "accommodate" sea level rise by avoiding building in certain areas, and in many areas (e.g. Bushland Beach, Rollingstone, Westpoint), they should "retreat" and remove assets through land swaps, abandonment and/or rezoning.

Even in areas where it will be economically worthwhile to undertake engineering works, I wouldn't count on the political will and foresight being there to get this done before the cost of insurance skyrockets or the land becomes entirely uninsurable. The insurance industry keeps a very close watch on these risks -- here's one analysis.

 

Building infrastructure is still cheaper than fighting an invisible gas.

 

As it turns out, that's not true, according to economists who have done the analyses (e.g. The True Cost of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019).

 

Alot of rate payers' money are going towards beach enrichment projects. Make sure you dont buy near a beach that the council is willing to let go!

And it's not just rising sea levels it is also rising sea temperatures. Hope it doesn't come true but insurance companies are already modelling this.
Insurer that predicted horror bushfire season warns devastating cyclones could hit major cities

 

How the spread of insurance red zones could trigger a property crunch

 

This is also an interesting read: Climate change science informs new Australian guidelines for consistent climate risk assessments and disclosures for Australian banks, financial institutions and insurers