New Data Reveals Rise in US Coastal Flooding
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reveal findings showing rising seas and flooding in US communities at record rates.
The NOAA has released a report on US flooding and a forecast for the coming year of floods. The data collected shows that coastal flooding is increasing at an alarming rate; flooding causes damage to property and roads, poses a threat to safe drinking water, and disrupts coastal communities.
The number of days with high-tide flooding set or tied records in 19 places around the country last year - Corpus Christi, Texas, (18 days of flooding); Galveston, Texas (18 days); Annapolis, Md. (18 days); and Charleston, S.C. (13 days). The place with the greatest number of recorded flood days was Eagle Point, Texas, in Galveston Bay; it reported high-tide flooding on 64 days, or almost one day out of five.
This trend is likely to accelerate, the NOAA said. By 2030, NOAA projected, the frequency of high-tide flooding could double or triple.
“Climate change and carbon emissions are a factor at play when we look at how tides are rising,” Nicole LeBoeuf, acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s National Ocean Service, acknowledged in the call with reporters. LeBoeuf also emphasized that the report was limited only to data collected from the tide gauges.
The question of what is causing seas to rise is, she said, “a little different.”
Although the NOAA will not directly attribute climate change and carbon emissions as the cause for this dramatic increase in flooding in their report, they admit here it is likely a major factor for the phenomenon. For the survival of these coastal communities, hopefully politicians and the public can prove the NOAA's prediction for future flooding wrong by combating climate change head on.
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