Millions of Americans will find themselves bailing out their homes and businesses in the coming years as climate change produces rising sea levels along U.S. coastlines.

By 2020, almost four million people living in Florida and Louisiana risk being underwater as a result of global warming, according to Government Technology, citing a study by Benjamin Strauss of the Program on Sea Level Rise at Climate Central.

Strauss, working with data from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that “Sea-level rise has already doubled the chances of extreme flooding in locations around the U.S., and that will only accelerate in the coming decades We look at these events as floods, but they are actually floods aggravated by sea-level rise. The way we experience sea-level rise is more floods reaching higher ground.”

The Sunshine State has 150 communities totaling 2.7 million individuals that “could be significantly affected by sea-level rise,” Justine Brown wrote at Government Technology. In Louisiana, the numbers are 1.2 million people in 114 towns.

In addition, there are hundreds of thousands more Americans in California, New Jersey, North Carolina and other states facing a wet future, Brown noted.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Underwater: Data Centers Nationwide Must Prepare for Flooding (by Justine Brown, Government Technology)

U.S. Military Plans Policy Shift in Response to Anticipated National Security Threats Caused by Climate Change  (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)