The US east coast has experienced flooding like a storm in the last few days, with Georgia and Carolina get the latest round.
High tides are part of the problem, but there are other risks that slowly crawl: rise in sea level.
Since 1880, the average global sea level has increased by more than 8 inches (23 centimeters), and the level has been accelerated with climate change.
Depending on how well the country reduces their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years, scientists estimate that global sea level can rise with an additional 2 feet at the end of this century.
Higher SEA means when the storm surges and the ups and downs arrives, they increase the surface of the water that is higher.
In some areas – including Charleston, South Carolina, where offshore storms and high tide levels rose 8.4 feet on November 5, 2021 – the sinking land made the impact worse.
I am a Geosmanis expert who studied sea level rise and the effects of climate change.
The following is a quick explanation of the two main ways of climate change affecting the sea level and their threats to the coast of the world.
Changes in marine thermal expansion, triggered by the use of fossil fuels and other human activities, causes the average global surface temperature to increase.
It led the ocean to absorb more heat than what happened before the industrial era began.
That, in turn, causes thermal expansion.
Thermal expansion means that when the ocean heated up, the sea water molecule moves a little further.
The farther separates the molecule, the more space they take.
That expansion leads to the sea up higher to the ground.
Over the past few decades, around 40% of global sea level rises were caused by the effect of thermal expansion.
The ocean, which cover more than two-thirds of the earth’s surface, has absorbed and save more than 90% of excess heat added to the climate system due to greenhouse gas emissions.
Land melts are another major factor in the rise of sea levels is that the average increase in global temperature melts ice land – glaciers and polar ice sheets – at a faster level of a natural system can replace it.
When ice land melts, that Meltwater finally flows into the sea, adds a new amount of water to the sea and increases the total mass of the ocean.
Over the past few decades, around 50% of global sea level rises are induced by Land Ice Melt.
At present, the sheets of the poles in Greenland and Antarctica held enough frozen waters that if they melted completely, it would increase global sea level up to 200 feet, or 60-70 meters – about the height of the statue of Liberty.
Climate change also melts sea ice.
However, because this ice has floated at sea level and moves a number of liquid water below, this melty does not contribute to sea level rise.
While the ocean surface height increases globally, the impact is not the same for each coastal area on earth.
The rate of increase can be several times faster in some places than others.
This difference is caused by unique local conditions in an area – such as the shift in marine circulation and increased soil.
The risk will continue to increase long after stabilizenly emissions 4 out of 10 US residents live near the coastline, and millions of people have dealt with coastal floods during storms and tides which can damage the houses, buildings and coastal infrastructure and other ecosystems.
The Chesapeake Bay area was beaten with floods during the ups and downs at the end of October, and the Miami region now dealt with high tidal floods several times a year.
Throughout the world, the researchers estimate that this century sea level increase can cause trillions of dollars in damage.
In some low island countries, including the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean, Rising Seas has forced residents to make striking choices about building expensive sea protection which will only last long or plan to leave their islands.
Officials from countries around the world meet at the UN climate conference with the aim of agreeing to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions is enough to keep global temperatures too high.
Even when emissions down, sea level will continue to increase for centuries because the massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will continue to melt and need a very long time to achieve a new balance.
The latest report from the intergovernmental panel for climate change shows excess heat in the climate system has been locked in the current level of thermal expansion and land ice melts at least the next few decades.