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An “oscillation” in the orbit of the Moon is expected to be partly attributed to a “dramatic” increase in flooding expected to begin in the mid-2030s, according to scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The report, produced by the NASA Sea Level Change Team at the University of Hawaii and published in the journal Nature Climate Change, predicts a potential rapid increase in the frequency of high tide flooding along coastal regions.
The NASA study says the lunar cycle combined with sea level rise is expected to lead to major flooding.
The report cites the “wobble” of the Moon’s orbit as a contributing factor to the potentially disastrous flooding.
This oscillation, which occurs every 18.6 years, causes extremely high and low tides. During half of this time, the regular tides on Earth are suppressed, which means high tides are below normal and low tides are higher than normal.
NASA also details a rise in global sea level as another factor attributing the floods that are expected to sweep the earth in about 15 years.
According to the study, the number of floods could quadruple as the gravitational effects of the lunar cycle combine with climate change to produce “a decade of dramatic increase” in water-related disasters.
Coastal towns would experience a rapid increase in high tide flooding lasting a month or more.
“The combination of the moon’s gravitational pull, sea level rise and climate change will continue to exacerbate coastal flooding on our coasts and across the world,” said Bill Nelson, chief of the space agency.
“What is new is how one of the effects of the oscillation on the moon’s gravitational pull – the main cause of the earth’s tides – will combine with the rise in sea level resulting from the warming of the planet.”
The next ‘lunar assistance’ at high tides will take place around mid-2030, by which time global sea level will have risen for another decade.
“By that time it will have passed a ‘tipping point’ and the result will be a surge in the number of floods on almost all of the continental United States.
“Low areas near sea level are increasingly threatened and are suffering due to increased flooding,” says Nelson.
“It will only get worse.”
According to the UN and numerous reports such as those published in Nature Communications Journal, by 2050, coastal cities will see hundreds of millions of people at risk of flooding made worse by rising sea levels.
Study co-author and NASA Sea Level Change Team Leader Ben Hamlington said city planners should prepare for increased high tide flooding and weather events extremes and that flooding is more likely because the factors contributing to it now won’t get worse in the future.
According to NASA research, the flooding will occur in clusters lasting a month or more, depending on the positions of the Moon, Earth and Sun.
NASA says the study is the first to consider all known oceanic and astronomical causes of flooding.
Professor Mark Howden, director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University, explains in more detail the responsible lunar phenomenon, known as the “nodal cycle” of the moon.
“The orbit of the Moon apparently changes from the point of view of the Earth,” explains Professor Howden.
“Sometimes it’s tilted one way and sometimes the other.”
Professor Howden explains that during the amplified part of the cycle, “the Moon aligns with the Sun in terms of gravity” – with the combined effect of increasing the height of high tides.
“These Moon cycles have been happening for probably billions of years, so they’re just part of the background world that we inherit,” he said.
“The problem here is that we are changing the sea level very quickly, so it’s rising at an all-time high right now, and what was previously a relatively mild cyclical effect is now a rising effect.
“In Florida, they experience what they call ‘sunny day flood events’ – it’s a day when there’s no storm pushing the waves onto the shore, it’s just that there is a high tide. “
Scientists explain that although the Moon is currently in part of its tidal amplifying cycle, the effects are not as environmentally significant as they will be the next time around as sea levels continue to rise. ascend.
Although the moon’s oscillation is a contributing factor, scientists say the fingers should not be pointed at the moon, but at climate change.
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