Study Finds 100-Year Coastal Floods Strike 12 Times More Often as Seas Rise 8 Inches
Updated
Updated · Earth.com · Jun 18
Study Finds 100-Year Coastal Floods Strike 12 Times More Often as Seas Rise 8 Inches
3 articles · Updated · Earth.com · Jun 18
Summary
A flood level once expected just 1% of years now occurs about every 8 years globally, according to a Nature Climate Change study led by Tulane's Sönke Dangendorf.
Nearly 8 inches of sea-level rise since 1900 lifted the baseline for storm surge and high tides, making extreme coastal flooding far more likely even without stronger storms.
Human-caused warming alone roughly quadrupled the odds of the old 1-in-100-year coastal extreme, and researchers say that human signal has dominated the increase since the 1960s.
Some coasts now face those once-century flood levels almost every year, with land subsidence worsening the risk in the hardest-hit regions.
Flood maps, insurance rates and building codes based on old 100-year statistics may now understate present-day coastal danger, giving policymakers and courts new evidence for adaptation debates.