11/7/2023 0 Comments Richard flood feetMitchum’s research has predicted a rise in sunny-day floodsover time, too.Ī few inches of saltwater intrusion is costly. Tampa Bay is especially prone to destruction from surges, a threat that a recent Tampa Bay Times special report shows will grow substantially over the next 30 years. “We don’t need as big a storm surge anymore - we maybe don’t need a Category 3 hurricane making landfall, but maybe a tropical depression” to cause serious flooding, Wahl said. Meanwhile, he said, storm surges that Floridians already fear will be more devastating. That phenomenon will migrate to other cities and soak waterfront neighborhoods more frequently, said Thomas Wahl, a University of Central Florida engineering professor who was a reviewer for the government report. South Florida, and especially Miami, is already a prominent example for sunny-day flooding, which fills streets with seawater during peak tides. “Make no mistake: Sea level rise is upon us.” “These are not the kind of changes we grew up with,” LeBoeuf said. But the problems mounting before cities today are different. Nicole LeBoeuf, director of the National Ocean Service, said she grew up on the Texas coast and knows how shorelines shift naturally. Richard Spinrad, who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, called it “a wake-up call for the United States.” Pete Beach where work on drainage improvements was ongoing last fall.Ĭompared to past research, the new report frames discussions more around a 30-year window, relatable to people as the length of a standard mortgage. Scientists say earth is locked into more heating and sea level rise, but people can stave off the worst consequences of climate change by lowering emissions. Warm temperatures cause water to expand and ice sheets to melt. People burn fossil fuels, releasing greenhouse gases that heat the atmosphere. Sea level rise has accelerated across the world, spurred by global warming. But we have a much better idea now of what they are.” “We’ve taken that cone, and we’ve narrowed it down,” he said. He said Floridians should think of the estimates like a “cone of uncertainty” for approaching hurricanes. Though the latest study lops off a previous “extreme” projection for sea level rise over the next few decades, Mitchum said people could still face similar conditions after 2100. Mitchum is a member of the regional science advisory panel, which he said will assess the data and revise its guidelines as needed. “It’s a shift in the timing, not so much in the height,” said Gary Mitchum, associate dean at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, who served as a reviewer for the federal report. The new projections, announced Tuesday, would raise the low end of that spectrum to just over a foot and drop the high end to about 19 inches in St. In Tampa Bay, a regional advisory panel has recommended that local governments plan for a range of sea level rise between roughly 11 and 31 inches from 2000 to 2050, based on a similar federal study published five years ago. Damaging floods could happen 10 times as often, scientists say. Florida’s near-future of higher sea levels and more flooding is coming into sharper focus, according to a new government report, even as scientists say worst-case conditions appear to be further off than initially thought - giving people additional time to prepare.Īcross the United States, sea levels are expected to jump 10 to 12 inches in the next three decades - about the same rise that took place over the last 100 years, according to researchers at several federal agencies and universities, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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