US coastal sea level rise projected
to be worse than world average
Our rapidly
warming climate has
profound geophysical, ecological and biological, as well as socioeconomic,
impacts worldwide.
Glacial melt, for instance, is changing the shape and
raising the elevation of land masses, while rising sea levels threaten the
sustainability of coastal cities and communities, reshape ocean basins and alter the Earth’s rotation and gravitational field.
Gathering, organizing and analyzing all the scientific data
required to monitor and assess the effects of climate change and rising sea
levels and craft even adequate adaptation plans is a huge, complex – and essential
– task.
It’s only recently that scientists have been able to develop
climate change models that can produce regional projections of sea level rise
with the necessary degree of confidence, and these efforts continue today.
On Jan. 19, NOAA and partners published new scenarios and
projections for global and regional U.S. sea level rise out to 2100 and 2200,
affording coastal communities across the U.S. the data information needed to
craft better climate change plans and adapt to the risk of and threats posed by
rising sea levels.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This may be the last chance for NOAA scientists to issue such research as their research is near the top of the list for elimination by the Trump regime.
Six scenarios
Refining six scenarios of global sea level rise culled from the
latest published and peer-reviewed scientific research to a gridded resolution
of one degree (about 70 miles), scientists from NOAA, NASA, universities and
research institutes around the country were able to produce probabilistic
estimates of sea level rise for U.S. coastal regions by decade out to 2100 and
over longer time frames out to 2200.
The unprecedented degree of resolution enables coastal managers
in Mobile, Alabama and Miami, Florida to produce probabilistic estimates,
assess different outcomes and craft local adaptation plans using the same
scenario, NOAA highlights in a news release.
State coastal planners in the mid-Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico
regions have used similar methods to assess the risks global and regional sea
level rise poses to U.S. military installations worldwide, NOAA notes.
“The ocean is not rising like water would in a bathtub,”
explained William Sweet, Ph.D., a NOAA oceanographer and lead author of the
report detailing the scenarios. “For example, in some scenarios sea levels in
the Pacific Northwest are expected to rise slower than the global average, but in
the Northeast they are expected to rise faster.
NOAA highlights the following among the report’s key takeaways:
Along regions of the Northeast Atlantic (Virginia coast and
northward) and the western Gulf of Mexico coasts, RSL rise is projected to be
greater than the global average for almost all future GMSL rise scenarios
(e.g., 0.3-0.5 m or more RSL rise by the year 2100 than GMSL rise under the
Intermediate scenario).
Along much of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska coasts, RSL is
projected to be less than the global average under the Low-to-Intermediate
scenarios (e.g., 0.1-1 m or less RSL rise by the year 2100 than GMSL rise under
the Intermediate scenario).
Along almost all U.S. coasts outside Alaska, RSL is projected to
be higher than the global average under the Intermediate-High, High and Extreme
scenarios (e.g., 0.3-1 m or more RSL rise by the year 2100 than GMSL rise under
the High scenario).
“Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States,”
was produced by a joint public-private sector for the Sea Level Rise and
Coastal Flood Hazard Scenarios and Tools Interagency Task Force, an agency
created by the U.S. Global Change Research Program and National Ocean Council
in 2015.
Researchers from NOAA, Rutgers University, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), South Florida Water Management District, Columbia
University, and U.S. Geological Survey co-authored the report.
*Image credits: NOAA, et. al.,
“Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States”; Jan. 2017
