Writes Strauss, "We believe these are the first estimates of vulnerability to sea level rise covering each and every major coastal city in the Lower 48—the places where Americans live in our highest concentrations."
Though cities along the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic coast are most vulnerable, Strauss notes "we also uncovered less familiar pockets of risk, from Virginia Beach to the New Jersey Shore, from Tampa Bay to the San Francisco Bay Area."
Strauss and his colleagues also didn't account for the fact that high tide levels vary by region. They're tackling that next.
In a separate but related study, NASA just released a visualization of how sea level rise would impact the Bay Area. Visualizations like this and another, similar project in New York City are going to become more and more important as urban planners and city governments slowly come around to recognizing the very serious threat that rising sea levels will pose on our urban areas. It will be very interesting to see how mayors and governors who are skeptical of climate science deal—or refuse to deal—with these predictions and projections in decades ahead.
Climate Central also has a disconcerting slide show featuring the 20 big American cities that should be most concerned about rising seas.