In the next few decades rising sea will lead to increased storm and tidal flooding for millions of Americans in coastal communities. Norfolk, Virginia, is pictured here with an inundated roadway. Credits: City of Norfolk
New results show average sea level rise approaching the 1-foot mark for
most coastlines of the contiguous U.S. by 2050. The Gulf Coast and Southeast
will see the most change.
By 2050, sea level along contiguous U.S. coastlines could rise as much as
12 inches (30 centimeters) above today’s waterline, according to researchers
who analyzed nearly three decades of satellite observations. The results from the NASA Sea Level Change Team could help refine near-term
projections for coastal communities that are bracing for increases in both
catastrophic and nuisance flooding in coming years.
Global sea level has been rising for decades in response to a warming
climate, and multiple lines of evidence indicate the rise is accelerating. The
new findings support the higher-range scenarios outlined in an interagency report released in February 2022. That report, developed by several federal
agencies – including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey – expect significant sea level rise over
the next 30 years by region. They projected 10 to 14 inches (25 to 35
centimeters) of rise on average for the East Coast, 14 to 18 inches (35 to 45
centimeters) for the Gulf Coast, and 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) for
the West Coast.
An illustration of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite. Launched in November 2020, it is the latest in a series of spacecraft – starting with TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992 and continuing with the Jason series of satellites – that have been gathering ocean height measurements for nearly 30 years. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Building on the methods used in that earlier report, a team led by
scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California leveraged
28 years of satellite altimeter measurements of sea surface height and correlated
them with NOAA tide gauge records dating as far back as 1920. By continuously measuring the
height of the surrounding water level, tide gauges provide a consistent record
to compare with satellite observations.
The researchers noted that the accelerating rate of sea level rise detected
in satellite measurements from 1993 to 2020 – and the direction of those trends
– suggest future sea level rise will be in the higher range of estimates for
all regions. The trends along the U.S. Southeast and Gulf coasts are
substantially higher than for the Northeast and West coasts, although the range
of uncertainty for the Southeast and Gulf coasts is also larger. This uncertainty
is caused by factors such as the effects of storms and other climate
variability, as well as the natural sinking or shifting of Earth’s surface
along different parts of the coast.
“A key takeaway is that sea level rise along the U.S. coast has continued
to accelerate over the past three decades,” said JPL’s Ben Hamlington, leader
of the NASA Sea Level Change Team and a co-author of both the new study and the
earlier report.
Hamlington noted that the team wanted to determine if they could refine sea
level estimates for communities facing imminent changes. “We’ve been hearing
from practitioners and planners along the coasts that they need more
information on shorter timescales – looking not 70 or 80 years into the future,
but looking 20 or 30 years into the future,” he said. “The bottom line is that
when looking ahead to what we might experience in coming years, we need to
consider these higher possibilities.”
This image of Earth shows sea level measured by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite in 2021. Red areas are regions where sea level is higher than normal while blue indicates where it’s below normal. The satellite collects measurements for about 90% of Earth’s ocean. Credits: NASA Earth Observatory
Shift in High-Tide Flooding
The hazards of rising sea level are amplified by natural variabilities on
Earth.
For instance, by the mid-2030s, every U.S. coast will experience more
intense high-tide floods due to a wobble in the Moon’s
orbit that occurs every 18.6 years. Hamlington said
that this lunar cycle, in combination with rising sea level, is projected to
worsen the impacts of high-tide flooding during the 2030s and 2040s.
Year-to-year variabilities such as the effects of El Niño and La Niña also can make it challenging to forecast how high and how fast sea
levels will rise annually. Hamlington said forecasts will continue to be
refined as satellites contribute more data over time.
A visualization tool from NASA’s Sea Level Change Team makes data on future sea level rise from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change easily accessible to the public. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA and France’s space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES)
started jointly flying satellite altimeters in the early 1990s, beginning a
continuous space-based record of sea surface height with high accuracy and
near-global coverage. That legacy continues with 2020 launch of the joint U.S.-
European Sentinel-6 Michael
Freilich mission and its altimeter, which will provide
scientists with an uninterrupted satellite record of sea level surpassing three
decades. The mission is a partnership between NASA, NOAA, ESA (European Space
Agency), the European Organisation for the Exploration of Meteorological
Satellites, and CNES.
NASA sea level researchers have long worked to understand how Earth’s changing climate affects the ocean. Along with launching satellites that contribute data to the long global record of sea surface height, NASA-supported scientists look to understand the causes of sea level change globally and regionally. Through testing and modeling they work to forecast how much coastal flooding U.S. communities will experience by the mid-2030s and provide an online visualization tool that enables the public to see how specific areas will be affected by sea level rise. Agencies at the federal, state, and local levels use NASA data to inform their plans on adapting to and mitigating the effects of sea level rise.
Learn more about sea level and climate change: https://sealevel.nasa.gov/
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Source: NASA Study: Rising Sea Level Could Exceed Estimates for U.S. Coasts | NASA
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