Bill Nelson: “we have a series of Senators who are going to be speaking about what is happening as a result of climate change and sea…”

“we have a series of Senators who are going to be speaking about what is happening as a result of climate change and sea level rise, which is having its effects in my State of Florida, particularly. Few States are as vulnerable to climate change than what we find particularly in South Florida, Miami Beach being Ground Zero. What is happening as the sea level is rising--and these are not projections, they are not forecasts; these are actually measurements, measurements by NASA and NOAA over the last 40 years that the sea has risen in South Florida 5 to 8 inches. We see the effects of that at the seasonal high tides--now, more increasingly, along with the cycles of the Moon each month. Water, typically, is sloshing around in streets and sloshing over the curves. As a result, the city of Miami Beach has had to spend tens of millions of dollars on huge, expensive pumps and has also had to raise the level of the roadbeds. NOAA's most recent worst-case scenario projections predict a 2-foot sea level rise by 2060 and, if we take it all the way to the end of the century, 6 feet by 2100. Needless to say, in a peninsula that sits in the middle of what we know as Hurricane Highway, 6 feet would inundate so much of the coastal areas. By the way, the population of Florida is 21 million people, and 75 percent is along the coastal regions.…”