Update on Sea Level Rise From Global Warming

I've been posting about global warming since 2014.  I haven't recently posted because of the pandemic.  I didn't want to post bad news during a time of really bad news.  There doesn't to be any end to the pandemic in sight, but life has reached some kind of abnormal normal, so I will begin global warming posts.  Today's is about a frequent topic, rising sea levels, because, as I've mentioned in the past, this will likely be the first to generate some impact on people's opinions.  This will likely be so because it is economic.  

The New York Times has published an article about the impact of rising sea levels on coastal housing prices.  

If rising seas cause America’s coastal housing market to dive — or, as many economists warn, when — the beginning might look a little like what’s happening in the tiny town of Bal Harbour, a glittering community on the northernmost tip of Miami Beach.

With single-family homes selling for an average of $3.6 million, Bal Harbour epitomizes high-end Florida waterfront property. But around 2013, something started to change: The annual number of homes sales began to drop — tumbling by half by 2018 — a sign that fewer people wanted to buy.

Prices eventually followed, falling 7.6 percent from 2016 to 2020, according to data from Zillow, the real estate data company.

The data shows the response of coastal housing prices to rising sea levels beginning in 2013.  

One immediate threat to sea levels is the land ice on Greenland.  If all of it melts into the ocean, sea levels would rise by 20 feet.  A study reports that Greenland's ice has passed a tipping point, threatening coastal levels all over the world.  So a 20 foot increase in global sea levels is certain by the end of this century, but at least a foot by 2030.  Any mortgage company that would award a 30 year mortgage on coastal property is not acting rationally.  

Home buyers are increasingly using mortgages that make it easier for them to stop making their monthly payments and walk away from the loan if the home floods or becomes unsellable or unlivable. More banks are getting buyers in coastal areas to make bigger down payments — often as much as 40 percent of the purchase price, up from the traditional 20 percent — a sign that lenders have awakened to climate dangers and want to put less of their own money at risk.

And in one of the clearest signs that banks are worried about global warming, they are increasingly getting these mortgages off their own books by selling them to government-backed buyers like Fannie Mae, where taxpayers would be on the hook financially if any of the loans fail.