Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Jul 12, 2021 11:00:40 GMT -5
A 'wobble' in the moon's orbit could result in record flooding in the 2030s, new study finds
By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer about 5 hours agoThe entire US coastline is in for a one-two punch from the lunar cycle and climate change.
Climate change has already increased the frequency and severity of hurricanes and other extreme weather events around the world. — But there's a smaller, less splashy threat on the horizon that could wreak havoc on America's coasts.
High-tide floods, also called "nuisance floods," occur in coastal areas when tides reach about 2 feet (0.6 meters) above the daily average high tide and begin to flood onto streets or seep through storm drains. True to their nickname, these floods are more of a nuisance than an outright calamity, inundating streets and homes, forcing businesses to close and causing cesspools to overflow — but the longer they last, the more damage they can do.
The U.S. experienced more than 600 of these floods in 2019, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But now, a new study led by NASA warns that nuisance floods will become a much more frequent occurrence in the U.S. as soon as the 2030s, with a majority of the U.S. coastline expected to see three to four times as many high-tide flood days each year for at least a decade.
The study, published June 21 in the journal Nature Climate Change, warns that these extra flood days won't be spread out evenly over the year, but are likely to cluster together over the span of just a few months; coastal areas that now face just two or three floods a month may soon face a dozen or more.
These prolonged coastal flood seasons will cause major disruptions to lives and livelihoods if communities don't start planning for them now, the researchers cautioned.
"It's the accumulated effect over time that will have an impact," lead study author Phil Thompson, an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii, said in a statement. "If it floods 10 or 15 times a month, a business can't keep operating with its parking lot under water. People lose their jobs because they can't get to work. Seeping cesspools become a public health issue."
Several factors drive this predicted increase in flood days.continued
www.livescience.com/high-tide-flooding-climate-change-2030
