New report: Sea levels rising rapidly on US shores

In the 20th century, seas along the Atlantic coast grew at their fastest rate in 2000 years. A new report suggests that there will be flooding in areas that were not there before.

Over the next 30 years, sea levels on the US coast will rise at the same rate they did throughout the 20th century. Costly flooding regularly affects major East Coast cities, even on sunny days, warns a government report released by NOAA and six other federal agencies.

After this, sea level will rise by 0.25 to 0.3 meters and 0.45 meters in parts of the US states of Louisiana and Texas. “Sea level rise is here,” said NOAA director Nicole LeBoeuf. The projected increase is particularly alarming because seas along the Atlantic coast have risen at their fastest rate in 2,000 years in the 20th century.

“New Level of Flood”

40 percent of the US population lives on the coast. However, the worst rise in sea level from melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland probably won’t happen until after 2100, said oceanographer William Sweet, the report’s lead author.

“The coastal flooding we’re seeing now in the United States will happen on a new scale in a few decades,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist Andrea Dutton, a sea level rise expert who doesn’t predict Yes, was included. in the federal report. “We can see this freight train coming from more than a mile away. The question is, will we keep pushing houses into the sea.”

One meter increase by the end of the century

By mid-century, “moderate” floods will replace smaller floods that are already regular in some areas, researchers warn. “There will be flooding in areas that haven’t experienced flooding before,” said William Sweet. “Many of our major metropolitan areas on the East Coast will be increasingly at risk.”

And that’s only until 2050. The report predicts an average sea level rise of about three feet in the United States by the end of the century—more in the east, less in the west.