South Florida Adapting Infrastructure to Rising Sea Levels
In South Florida, more frequent and destructive flooding due to climate change has become a serious problem. This March 19 report by the PBS News Hour and WPBT looks at how communities like Miami Beach and Broward County are trying to adapt their physical systems to stand up to the new reality. The drainage infrastructure on the Florida coast has relied upon gravity to draw rainfall runoff from higher canal levels to lower sea level, according to the report. But warming temperatures are raising sea level too high for these systems to work, by expanding the size of water molecules at the ocean's surface, while also melting glaciers that historically kept much of the world's fresh water locked away from the ocean. Climate change is also causing briefer but torrential rainfalls, creating more runoff than the drainage systems were built to handle all at once. The first words in the segment, spoken by fishing boat captain...