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– The floods of the 2030s could make us look back on this decade with fondness. NASA sea level researchers say high tide flooding could seriously worsen the next decade along the U.S. coast, reports NPR. This is the kind of flood in which water invades the streets and courtyards of coastal areas. “Harmful flooding,” as they are sometimes called, occurs when the tides reach about 2 feet above the daily average high tide, according to Live Science. If they don’t last long, the damage is minimal. But a peer-reviewed study published in Nature Climate Change notes that flooding could occur more often and be more severe, possibly for the whole of the 2030s. Sea level rise caused by climate change is a big reason. “They are getting terribly close to the edge in coastal communities due to decades of sea level rise,” said an oceanographer who co-authored the study, according to the New York Times.
The spark could come from the moon. It operates on an 18.6 year cycle, creating lower high tides and higher low tides half the time and higher high tides and even lower low tides the other half. The moon will be due to “oscillations” and its influence on the tides will be more dramatic than in the past because the sea level is so high, according to the study. The effect will vary along the different coasts. In addition, the researchers wrote that the flooding could start to occur in clusters lasting about a month, depending on the position of the moon, sun and Earth. The oscillation itself usually doesn’t have a huge effect, moving the high tide over a range of an inch or two during the cycle. But the factors add up and researchers say we shouldn’t be taken by surprise. “It kind of increases the baseline,” said the study’s lead author. “And the higher your baseline, the smaller the weather event you need to cause a flood.” (Read more stories of floods.)
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