Yahoo News’ reprinted an item from The Cool Down, titled “Experts warn that beloved US coastal town could soon vanish off map entirely: ‘I’m scared,’” which claims Cape Coral, Florida will disappear soon due to climate change induced sea level rise. This claim is absolutely false. Actual sea level rise data is well below the extreme scenarios promoted in the story the article is based on.
The Cool Down story repeats exaggerated projections from the organization called Climate Central, suggesting that Cape Coral, Florida, will “vanish” under rising seas by 2150. It asserts that Florida’s average sea level could rise 3.6 feet by the end of the century and that 17,000 homes statewide could face annual flooding by 2050. Actual measured sea level data shows this to be impossible.
The Yahoo News reposting also repeats the tired talking point that “a warmer planet acts as ‘steroids’ for weather,” claiming more frequent hurricanes and floods. Yet data shows no clear global trend in tropical cyclone frequency. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Historical Hurricane Tracks database similarly shows no upward trend in U.S. hurricane landfalls over the past century. Climate at a Glance also demonstrates that there is no upwards trend in U.S. hurricanes.
The article quotes one resident saying, “I’m scared. It’s really weird. It’s weird to think about that it’s not gonna be here when I’m gone.” That misplaced and overwhelming sense of fear is precisely what Climate Central’s alarming “drowning maps” are designed to provoke. It is not, however, justified by what Florida’s sea-level data actually show.
According to NOAA’s tide gauge record for Fort Myers (Station 8725520),which is the nearest to Cape Coral, the relative sea-level trend near Cape Coral is 3.64 millimeters per year, with a 95% confidence interval of ±0.42 mm/year, based on continuous monthly mean data from 1965 to 2024. That equates to 1.19 feet per century, as seen in the graphic below:
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