Scientists: Sea Level Rise, Rain Fall and Global warming are All Intricately

This research focused on precipitation and storm surges but scientists did not that long term increase in sea level because of climate change has represented a larger driver of flood risk.

Researchers also looked at the link between storm surge and rains across time and found compound flooding events increased since the 1950s, in several locations from San Diego to Tampa to Boston. They found that storm surges in New York City are accompanied by heavy precipitation when a high pressure system stretches from Newfoundland south over the North Atlantic from where moist air is transported into the low-pressure system causing the storm surge. If we would assemble the total surface of these counties on the costal U.S.in just one country for the sake of comparison, it would be housing a population with the third highest GDP in the world. In the past, disaster experts analyzed these two factors separately to define flood zones.

Study’s lead researcher Thomas Wahl, with the College of Marine Science and the University of Siegen in Germany has stated that compound flooding takes when strong storms combine with high amounts of rainfall.

The authors of the study hope that knowing what to expect and how often to expect it might help cities become better prepared to deal with these types of major flooding events. Overall, the cities located along the Gulf coast and the Atlantic coast are at higher risk of compound flooding than cities located on the Pacific coast.

New York’s odds of being flooded by a one- two punch of extreme rain and surging seas have more than doubled in the past 80 years, a change scientists say may be linked to global warming. Researchers have noted that the possibility of a coastal city to experience severe rainfall and storm levels increase at the same time is extremely likely to happen nowadays compared to the middle of the 20 century. As per Meyers, there is an increasing risk of storm surge and rainfall caused compound flooding. Researchers estimated the risk of future flooding based on weather records and tide gauges.

Climate change acts on human habitats much faster than expected, a new study suggests. It’s possible that climate change has strengthened the correlation between storm surge and heavy rainfall, but further analyses will be needed to make that case, the team notes.

The paper, available at Nature Climate Change, describes this study.