Earth Wise

A look at our changing environment.

You are here: Home / Archives for coastal flooding

coastal flooding

The UK is heating up

By Leave a Comment

June and July have both seen multiple days with temperatures in the 90s in London, England.  This is almost unheard of, but according to British scientists, record-breaking extreme weather has become the new norm in the UK.

Weather records show that the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago.  The number of days with temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit above the average from 1961-1990 has doubled in the last 10 years.  For days 14 degrees above average, the number has tripled, and for 18 degrees above average, it has quadrupled. 

Apart from the higher temperatures, rain in the UK has become more intense.  The number of months where counties receive at least double their average rainfall has risen by 50% in the past 20 years.  Sea level around the UK is rising faster than the global average, worsening the impact of coastal flooding.

An estimated 600 people died as a result of the heatwave that hit England and Wales at the end of June.  Scientists calculated that the extreme high temperatures were made 100 times more likely to have occurred as a result of climate warming.

The UK has some of the longest duration meteorological records in the world.  Those records show that recent temperatures have far exceeded any in at least 300 years.  The last three years were among the UK’s five hottest years on record. 

Today’s record-breaking temperatures are likely to be average by 2050 and positively cool by 2100, according to scientists.

**********

Web Links

‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK

Photo, posted February 4, 2018, courtesy of Hannes Flo via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Hudson River Tidal Marshes And Sea Level Rise | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

A new study at the University of Massachusetts Amherst looked at the resilience of Hudson River Estuary marshes to rising sea levels.  They observed that these marshes are growing upward at a rate two or three times faster than sea level rise, suggesting that they should be resilient to accelerated sea level rise in the future.

The study documented the fact that more than half of Hudson River tidal marshes actually formed since 1850.  In that year, the river channel was straightened, and a riverside railroad, berms, jetties and human-made islands of dredged soil were built.  All of these human-made features trapped sediment and created backwaters that often turned into marshes.

The research centered on seven sites spanning more than 100 miles of the Hudson Estuary from Wall Street up to Albany.  Although these marshes were an unintended result of early industrial development, they serve to protect the shoreline and provide rich ecosystems in terms of direct ecological and human benefits.  Marshes are a first line of defense against coastal flooding, provide an essential habitat for juvenile commercial fish species, store huge amounts of carbon that mitigates climate change, provide habitat for migratory birds, and filter nutrients coming off the land.

The study determined that such marches form relatively quickly.  When sediment is readily available, freshwater tidal wetlands can develop rapidly in sheltered settings.   There is concern that marshes globally will be drowned by rising sea levels, but this Hudson River case study shows how marshes may be able to resist the rising seas.  The research will help guide future land acquisition and land conservation strategies for areas adjacent to the river.

**********

Web Links

New Study Finds More than Half of Hudson River Tidal Marshes were Created Accidentally by Humans; Resilient Against Sea Level Rise

Photo, posted December 4, 2008, courtesy of Daina Dajevskis via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hundred-Year Floods Becoming One-Year Floods

By Leave a Comment

By definition, 100-year floods are intense flooding events that historically tend to happen once every 100 years.  Put another way, a 100-year flood has a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year.

According to new research published in the journal Nature Communications, rising global temperatures may turn 100-year floods into annual occurrences in parts of the United States.  The increase in severe coastal flooding events by the end of this century will be a result of rising sea levels and stronger, more frequent tropical storms and hurricanes.

The study, led by researchers at Princeton University and MIT, examined flood risk for 171 counties along the US East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.  Their analysis concluded that 100-year floods will become annual events in New England.  In the US Southeast and Gulf of Mexico, counties could experience such floods as often as every year up to as seldom as every 30 years.

Previously, most analysis of coastal flooding has looked only at the impact of sea level rise on flood risk.  This new research combined the risk of rising seas with projected changes in coastal storms over the course of this century.  Data from the Gulf of Mexico revealed that the effect of stronger storms is comparable with or even more significant than the effect of sea level change for 40% of the counties studied.  So, neglecting the effects of storm climatology change is likely to significantly underestimate the impact of climate change in many places.

The hope is that more comprehensive flood risk data can be used to create more effective climate resiliency strategies all the way down to the county level.

**********

Web Links

100-Year Floods Could Soon Happen Annually in Parts of U.S., Study Finds

Photo, posted August 31, 2017, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)