by Shane Henson — March 30, 2012—Climate Central, a nonprofit news and research organization that analyzes and reports on climate science, has released a new report warning that sea level rise due to global warming has already doubled the annual risk of coastal flooding across widespread areas of the United States.
Titled Surging Seas, the report is the first to analyze how sea level rise caused by global warming is compounding the risk from storm surges throughout the coastal contiguous United States. It is also first to generate local and national estimates of the land, housing and population in vulnerable low-lying areas, and to associate this information with flood risk timelines. The Surging Seas Web site includes a searchable, interactive online map that zooms down to neighborhood level, and shows risk zones and statistics for 3,000 coastal towns, cities, counties and states affected up to 10 feet above the high-tide line.
According to the report, by 2030, many locations are likely to see storm surges combining with sea level rise to raise waters at least 4 feet above the local high-tide line. Nearly 5 million U.S. residents live in 2.6 million homes on land below this level. More than 6 million people live on land below 5 feet; by 2050, the study projects that widespread areas will experience coastal floods exceeding this higher level.
In 285 municipalities, more than half the population lives below the 4-foot mark. One hundred and six of these places are in Florida, 65 are in Louisiana, and 10 or more are in New York (13), New Jersey (22), Maryland (14), Virginia (10) and North Carolina (22), note the report’s authors. In 676 towns and cities spread across every coastal state in the lower 48 except Maine and Pennsylvania, more than 10% of the population lives below the 4-foot mark.
“Sea level rise is not some distant problem that we can just let our children deal with. The risks are imminent and serious,” said report lead author Dr. Ben Strauss of Climate Central. “Just a small amount of sea level rise, including what we may well see within the next 20 years, can turn yesterday’s manageable flood into tomorrow’s potential disaster. Global warming is already making coastal floods more common and damaging.”
