Latest news with #coastalFlooding
Daily Mail
15-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The elite island that has residents living in fear as sea levels predicted to rise by a FOOT in next 30 years
On one of the wealthiest and most picturesque islands in America, fear is rising as fast as the Atlantic tide. According to the latest projections by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), sea levels around Nantucket are expected to rise by more than a foot by 2055 - a threat that experts say could drastically reshape the island's future. The estimate comes from NOAA's 'high sea level' scenario, adopted by the Town of Nantucket, which forecasts sea level rise of 1.15 feet as soon as 2040 and more than 2 feet by 2060, according to the Town and County of Nantucket. Long known as an elite summer destination with multimillion-dollar waterfront homes, Nantucket now finds itself at the forefront of coastal climate risk. Some of the island's most iconic areas, including the historic downtown, are already showing signs of strain. Flooding that once occurred just a few times a year now inundates places like the island's beloved Easy Street nearly every month. Milan Basnet, owner of the Easy Street Restaurant, said the flooded streets negatively affect his business. 'Last month it rained heavily twice, none of it actually affected the restaurant, but when the water is that high, people can't walk or cross the street and are less likely to come in to eat,' he told the High tide flooding events have increased from an average of six per year in the 1960s, to an average of 37 times in 2020 and eventually moved to a record-setting 75 times in 2023. Some of the island's most iconic areas, including the historic downtown, are already showing signs of strain. Flooding that once occurred just a few times a year now inundates places like Easy Street (pictured) nearly every month In response, the town, which is home to about 14,000 year-round residents, adopted a Coastal Resilience Plan in 2021, which identified four major concerns - groundwater table rise, coastal flooding, high tide flooding and coastal erosion. The timely report also outlines a series of projects ranging from nature-based shoreline defenses to costly infrastructure retrofits designed to help mitigate the ongoing crisis. More than 2,300 buildings - many of them historical and residential properties - have been identified as vulnerable to flooding or erosion by 2070, according to the assessment. The projected damages have the potential to cause upwards of $3.4billion in damages if no adaptation measures are taken, Leah Hill, the town's coastal resilience advisory coordinator, told Inside Climate News. The resilience plan is simple in theory, but challenging in execution, given the island's mix, Hill said. The multi-pronged plan is based on three strategies. 'Protect (keep water out), adapt (live with water), retreat (move away from water),' according to Hill. 'Depending on which critical infrastructure is at risk depends on which strategy is recommended.' Hill added that the coastal resilience plan will assess risks every five to 10 years. The plan has identified over 40 proposed projects over the next 15 years at a hefty cost of $930million. So far, the picturesque island has committed $14million for coastal resilience projects including planning, design and implementation. In some more coastal areas on the island, residents have already begun to elevate homes and retrofit buildings in an attempt to stay ahead of the water. On Sheep Pond Road, erosion has forced some property owners to relocate their homes inland by hundreds of feet, and in some cases houses have even had to be demolished. Since 2014, seven structures along Sheep Pond Road have been demolished due to erosion, the Nantucket Current reported. The challenge, town officials say, lies in balancing preservation with preparedness. 'It's not like we create the coastal resilience plan, and then we follow it, and we're done,' Sarah Bois, Director of Research and Education, at The Linda Loring Nature Foundation, said. 'It's because the change is continuous, and we can't anticipate all the different ways that the community is going to be impacted. It is something that we have to kind of revisit and think about and adapt as it goes along.' Bois, who works for the nonprofit which operates from a wildlife preserve created over decades, added that to 'better handle' rising waters and continued onslaughts of rain, they are pursuing protections for homeowners, businesses and tourist trade. The protections will modify the landscape and natural spaces to better suit the influx of stormwater, she told Inside Climate News, adding that pipes that carry stormwater are being assessed and patched this spring. Other Nantucket improvements include bioswales - plant-filled channels that absorb runoff - are part of several projects, and at Polpis Harbor, recycled oyster shells are being used to rebuild a salt marsh and support local bird habitats. For now, Nantucket is pushing forward with its resilience planning, buoyed by state and federal support and an increasingly engaged local community. But with the sea continuing to rise and climate projections growing more dire, the island's future remains on unstable ground.
Daily Mail
13-06-2025
- Climate
- Daily Mail
New map reveals US cities and landmarks set to disappear by 2050
A new interactive map is painting a grim picture for America's coastal cities, with many projected to be underwater by 2050 . Climate Central, an independent organization of scientists, has been developing a new Coastal Risk Screening Tool to predict how sea level rise and coastal flooding will reshape the US each decade. The latest update revealed that several major cities in Louisiana , Georgia, Florida and New York will sink below annual flood levels, threatening thousands of people who may find their homes underwater within the next 30 years. The Florida Everglades and the island that the Statue of Liberty sits on in New York are both predicted to be underwater in 25 years. Countless wildlife conservation parks throughout the US are also expected to sink, and beachfront communities along the Gulf and East Coast will likely shrink as sea levels wash away the coastline. The new map also allows users to look at the best and worst case scenarios based on major flood predictions and pollution's impact on the climate, according to data from a 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Long Island, Atlantic City, New Orleans and San Jose are all in the US danger zone even in the most conservative estimates by Climate Central. Here are several of the major cities that could submerge under rising sea levels by 2050. New Orleans, Louisiana The iconic Gulf Coast city has been in the crosshairs of climate alarmists for decades. The new map revealed that New Orleans, home to more than 360,000 people, will likely see the entire city sitting below the annual flood level. This means that, based on Climate Central's sea level rise projections and coastal elevation models, the city is expected to sink below the elevation at which flooding is likely to occur at least once per year. Simply put, even a normal flood in a year without extreme storms will submerge the whole city since nothing will be left above sea level in 2050. Cape Coral, Florida This southwestern Florida city is known for its many canals, but this also makes it one of the major projected victims of climate change-related sea level rise. Climate Central's map predicts that, by 2050, all of the local waterways that line the streets will rise up and erode much of the waterfront property these Floridians enjoy. Cape Coral is home to more than 220,000 people. Its low-lying areas are at high risk of being below annual flood level in 2050, even under moderate climate emissions scenarios projected by Climate Central. The city has also been struck by multiple hurricanes in recent years, including Hurricane Helene in 2024 and Hurricane Irma in 2017. Savannah, Georgia Charleston, South Carolina Charleston has become a major tourism hub over the years, but the new map predicts that much of the historic city's well-preserved architecture will sink into dangerous flood zones within three decades. Charleston faces regular flooding from storm surges, heavy rain and king tides - exceptionally high tides that occur when the gravitational forces of the moon and sun align. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo caused $2.8 billion in damage, and recent storms like Matthew and Irma brought significant flooding as well. Sitting on a peninsula in South Carolina, the 2050 forecast projects that Charleston will see a sea level rise that floods areas along all three edges of the city. Atlantic City, New Jersey East Rutherford, New Jersey Speaking of New Jersey, even some more inland locations are at risk of severe sinking and flooding over the next 25 years. Located along the Hackensack River and less than 10 miles from New York City, East Rutherford has become known for two major attractions: the American Dream Mall and MetLife Stadium. Both venues sit on the Meadowlands, a large ecosystem of wetlands, marshes and tidal areas in northern New Jersey. According to the 2050 projections from Climate Central, that means the NFL's New York Jets and New York Giants will see their stadium sitting underwater within 30 years as the entire area is expected to fall under the annual flood level. Long Island, New York Although Long Island is so big that it has over a dozen cities and towns scattered across two counties, the entire coastline of this major New York landmass could be washed away by 2050. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, causing widespread flooding throughout Long Island with damages surpassing $20 billion. In the latest projections for 2050, almost all of the small landmasses connecting the island's many vacation spots - including Fire Island and Jones Beach - will be underwater. Home to nearly 3 million people, coastal communities in Long Island's Babylon, Lindenhurst, Amityville, Massapequa, Freeport and Oceanside will also be affected by the rising sea levels eroding local beaches and beachfront property. San Jose, California On the West Coast, Climate Central's interactive map actually predicted little to no sea level rise and flooding throughout California. One area that did not escape the projected impact of climate change, however, was San Jose, which sits at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay. The 2050 projection warns that San Jose's Bayfront areas will be at risk of submerging in a flood. That includes the area around Levi's Stadium, home of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers. While Climate Central's forecast was kind to most of California, other recent studies have not been. Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) revealed that Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Alameda are all among the coastal cities that have seen their local sea levels rise since 2018. Rising sea levels and continued land erosion threaten to exacerbate flooding and subsidence (sinking of the ground) in these areas. Their new data showed that San Diego is experiencing the highest amount of sea level rise along the entire West Coast, rising 2.6 millimeters a year. By 2050, all four of these cities are predicted to see their local sea levels rise several inches above the projected average for that year.
Daily Mail
13-06-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
New map reveals all the iconic US cities and landmarks set to DISAPPEAR by 2050
A new interactive map is painting a grim picture for America's coastal cities, with many projected to be underwater by 2050. Climate Central, an independent organization of scientists, has been developing a new Coastal Risk Screening Tool to predict how sea level rise and coastal flooding will reshape the US each decade.
Sky News
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Arctic warming 3.5 times faster than rest of world - as security threats to UK 'fundamentally changing'
The Arctic is warming 3.5 times faster than the global average, scientists have warned, raising new security threats for the UK. Melting Arctic ice is opening up more routes for shipping and military vessels, and the potential to drill for new reserves of gas, oil and natural minerals in an otherwise virtually unspoilt ecosystem. The continent has long been warming faster than the rest of the world. As the sea ice disappears, its white surface that reflects sunlight gives way to darker ocean underneath that absorbs the heat instead. Today the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned the Arctic is on course to warm 3.5 times faster than the rest of the world over the next five years, making it at least 2.4C warmer than the recent average. It comes as the UK's Foreign Secretary David Lammy tours the region to assess threats from Russia and climate change, calling it an "increasingly important frontier for geopolitical competition and trade". On Tuesday he announced new UK funding to work with Iceland on monitoring Arctic waters, for AI to detect hostile state activity and for research on the impact on the UK. Arctic melt is expected to push up sea levels around Britain's coastline and fuel worse coastal flooding. It will shift the jet stream, disrupting the UK's weather system in ways not yet fully understood. Security threat 'fundamentally changed' Klaus Dodds, geopolitics professor at Royal Holloway, said less sea ice in the Arctic will likely attract "heightened commercial and military activity by third parties that are not allies of the UK, primarily Russia and China". He said the UK should prepare to operate in the region without the US as a reliable ally, while Russia will "continue to target critical infrastructure in the North Atlantic and European Arctic - all of which maybe ever more accessible". Ed Arnold from security thinktank RUSI said further melt will mean "that the Russians would have more control over [the Northern Sea Route]" via which ships can access waters around Britain. The security threat is changing "pretty fundamentally" as vessels can more easily travel through the Arctic to waters containing gas pipelines or data cables supplying Europe, he added. 1:55 'Shocking, but not shocking' The WMO report also warned a dangerous new warming threshold was on the horizon for the first time. Ten years ago, under the landmark Paris Agreement, world leaders promised to try to limit warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, and ideally stick to 1.5C. At the time, both those thresholds felt a long way off. But just 10 years later, today's report forecasts for the first time ever a chance of breaching 2C of warming at some point in the next five years. The chances are "exceptionally unlikely", probably no more than 1%, said Prof Adam Scaife from the Met Office Hadley Centre, who worked on the report. But such a forecast would have been "effectively impossible" just a few years ago, in a sign of how quickly the climate is changing. Prof Scaife added: "It is shocking in that sense that two degrees is possible. However, it's not shocking [because]… we thought it might be plausible at this stage, and indeed it is." And unless something changes dramatically, 2C will become increasingly likely, increasingly soon, the authors warned, driving more extreme weather and migration as homelands become unliveable. The WMO also warned temperatures are likely to again hit 1.5C above pre-industrial levels over the next five years - after doing so temporarily in 2024.
CBS News
22-05-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
Rain chances continue Thursday across Maryland
Rain showers will persist overnight and into Thursday across the region as an upper-level low-pressure system spins nearby. Steadier rainfall is expected to last until around midnight before gradually tapering to isolated showers. Temperatures will hold steady in the 50s overnight. A persistent easterly wind will increase coastal flooding risks, prompting coastal flood advisories through Thursday along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Expect mostly cloudy skies Thursday with high temperatures reaching the low to mid-60s. A few areas could see brief breaks of sun, potentially triggering isolated afternoon storms. However, overall rain coverage will be more scattered than Wednesday. Showers will diminish further Thursday night, with lows again in the 50s. Heading into Memorial Day weekend, Friday will feature partly to mostly cloudy skies and highs in the 60s. A few isolated showers may develop in the afternoon, but widespread rain is not expected. Dry conditions and partly cloudy skies are forecast for Saturday and Sunday, with temperatures warming into the 70s. Memorial Day itself will see warmer conditions with highs climbing into the mid-70s. Rain chances return later in the day Monday, marking the beginning of another unsettled weather period. Wet weather is likely to continue through Tuesday, with additional showers possible Wednesday through Friday as another upper-level low develops over the region. Temperatures will remain unseasonably cool through most of next week, with highs generally in the 60s to low 70s. Tuesday is expected to be the coolest day. Finally, late next week should bring a significant pattern change, offering a break from the persistent gray, cool, and damp conditions. Expect temperatures to rebound closer to 80 degrees, accompanied by increased sunshine.
