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SOURCE: Inside Climate News

DATE: March 7, 2018

SNIP: Coastal communities should expect much more frequent flooding in coming decades as sea levels rise, according to a new federal report. Many places that are dry now could flood every day by the end of the century.

The report, published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, projects the impact of sea level rise on coastal flooding along the nation’s shorelines and says it’s already having an effect, particularly on the East Coast. In the Southeast, the average number of days with high-tide floods has more than doubled since 2000, to three per year, while the number in the Northeast has increased by about 75 percent, to six per year.

“We’re seeing an accelerated increase up and down most of the Atlantic Seaboard,” said William V. Sweet, an oceanographer at NOAA and the lead author of the report. “That’s not a good place to be, because impacts are going to become chronic rather quickly.”

While Miami currently experiences only a few days of high-tide flooding per year, for example, it should expect 10 days each year by the early 2030s under an intermediate scenario for sea level rise. Just a decade later, that number could triple. And flooding would likely occur every other day by 2060.