Florida wakes up to climate change

The city of Miami Beach is slowly disappearing under water. At the big high tides of the year the sea washes over the famous wide beach and floods many of the city streets and magnificent Art Deco buildings. And over the past decade the floods have been striking more frequently.

Most of the city sits just a few feet above sea level, built on a foundation of porous limestone, allowing the rising seas to seep into the city's foundations, surge up through pipes and drains, encroaching on fresh water supplies and saturating infrastructure. The city is now investing in a $500m project to raise roads and a pumping system to hold back the floods.