Rising seas could flood 544 US cities
Source: Agencies |
March 15, 2012, Thursday
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GLOBAL warming-fueled sea level rise over the next century could flood 3.7 million people in 544 United States cities temporarily, according to a new method of looking at the risk of rising seas published in two scientific papers.
The cities that have the most people living within one meter of high tide - the projected sea level rise by the year 2100 made by many scientists - are in Florida, Louisiana, and New York. New York City, not often thought as prone to flooding, has 141,000 people at risk, after New Orleans' 284,000. The two big Southeast Florida counties, Miami-Dade and Broward, have 312,000 people at risk combined.
"Southeast Florida is definitely the highest density of population that's really on low coastal land that's really most at risk," said lead author Ben Strauss, a scientist at Climate Central, which is a New Jersey-based group of scientists and journalists who do research about climate change.
The studies look at people who live in homes within 90 centimeters of high tide, whereas old studies looked just at elevation above sea level, according to work published yesterday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research and an accompanying report by Climate Central.
That's an important distinction because using high tide is more accurate for flooding impacts, said study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment. And when the new way of looking at risk is factored in, the outlook is worse, he said.
"It's shocking to see how large the impacts could be, particularly in southern Florida and Louisiana, but much of the coastal US will share in the serious pain."
Sea level has already risen about 20 centimeters since 1880 because warmer waters expand, Strauss said.
The cities that have the most people living within one meter of high tide - the projected sea level rise by the year 2100 made by many scientists - are in Florida, Louisiana, and New York. New York City, not often thought as prone to flooding, has 141,000 people at risk, after New Orleans' 284,000. The two big Southeast Florida counties, Miami-Dade and Broward, have 312,000 people at risk combined.
"Southeast Florida is definitely the highest density of population that's really on low coastal land that's really most at risk," said lead author Ben Strauss, a scientist at Climate Central, which is a New Jersey-based group of scientists and journalists who do research about climate change.
The studies look at people who live in homes within 90 centimeters of high tide, whereas old studies looked just at elevation above sea level, according to work published yesterday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research and an accompanying report by Climate Central.
That's an important distinction because using high tide is more accurate for flooding impacts, said study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment. And when the new way of looking at risk is factored in, the outlook is worse, he said.
"It's shocking to see how large the impacts could be, particularly in southern Florida and Louisiana, but much of the coastal US will share in the serious pain."
Sea level has already risen about 20 centimeters since 1880 because warmer waters expand, Strauss said.
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