Tipping Point for Sea Level Rise May Occur by the Year 2050

When it comes to sea level rise, there are tipping points for flooding. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at how seal level rise may influence flooding by the year 2050, and have discovered that the majority of U.S. coastal areas are likely to be threatened by 30 or more days of flooding each year.

When it comes to assessing flooding risk, it's important to establish a frequency-based benchmark. Called "tipping points," these benchmarks are defined as between one to two feet above local high tide.

The researchers examined several sites, using a 1.5 to 4 foot set of recent projects for global seal level rise by the year 2100. They also accounted for local factors such as the settlement of land. Based on the research, the researchers found that these tipping points will be met or exceeded by 2050 at most of the U.S. coastal areas studied. This is regardless of the seal level rise likely to occur this century.

"Coastal communities are beginning to experience sunny-day nuisance or urban flood, much more so than in decades past," said William Sweet, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This is due to sea level rise. Unfortunately, once impacts are noticed, they will become commonplace rather quickly. We find that in 30 to 40 years, even modest projections of global sea level rise-1.5 feet by the year 2100-will increase instances of daily high tide flooding to a point requiring an active, and potentially costly response and by the end of this century, our projections show that there will be near-daily nuisance flooding in most of the locations that we reviewed."

The findings reveal how vulnerable coastal communities may become in the future. It's important to create strategies to help curtail the issue of flooding in the future. Mitigation decisions could include retreating further inland in addition to creating "green" infrastructure, which include dunes and wetlands.

The findings are published in the journal Earth's Future.

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