'New Orleans Is in a Terminal State'

New Orleans, a city long defined by water, may ultimately have to give in to it. A new perspectives paper in Nature Sustainability argues that southern Louisiana has crossed a "point of no return" on sea-level rise, and that planning to resettle people away from the New Orleans region should start now, per the Guardian. The researchers say a combination of rising seas, sinking land, stronger hurricanes, and vanishing wetlands will likely leave New Orleans and Baton Rouge effectively cut off by the Gulf of Mexico within decades, not centuries. The study authors call coastal Louisiana "the most physically vulnerable coastal zone in the world" and warn that levees and pumps, however costly, can only delay the inevitable.

Perhaps by 2100, a city home to 350,000 "will be surrounded by open water," says study co-author Jesse Keenan, a climate expert at Tulane University, noting there's "no amount of money" that can "keep an island situated below sea level afloat." The recent cancelation of two major sediment-diversion projects has only brought New Orleans' death closer, reports NOLA. Put simply, "New Orleans is in a terminal state" and "we have to think about palliative care," Keenan tells the outlet. The study calls for immediate work to begin relocating the most vulnerable communities, starting with those outside the levee system, no matter how politically toxic such a move might be. The lead study author, Tulane geologist Torbjörn Törnqvist, tells NOLA he's "preparing for some hate mail."