"Dec.
4, 2013 — Despite the
fact that recent studies have focused on climate change impacts on the
intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones themselves, a research team led by
Jon Woodruff of the University of Massachusetts Amherst found on review of the
relevant science that sea level rise and shoreline retreat are the two more
certain factors expected to drive an increase in future flood risk from such
storms."
Geoscientist
Jon Woodruff along with his coauthors say that society must learn to live with
a shoreline that is evolving and become more susceptible to flooding from
hurricanes. The authors say that sea level rise and the potential it has to
change coastlines is understudied therefore, this can result in catastrophic
changes in flood risk associated with hurricanes. Woodruff says that there is a
general agreement that there will be fewer hurricanes but that they will be
more violent. The issue becomes that “there is less consensus on the magnitude
of these changes, and it remains unclear how closely individual regions of
tropical cyclone activity will follow global trends.”
Mr. Woodruff
notes that the frequency and intensity of flooding will increase because the
sea level is increasing as well. He says that the moderate rise of sea level is
now over and that shorelines “are now beginning to adjust to a new boundary
condition that in most cases serves to accelerate rates of shoreline retreat”.
Mr. Woodruff and his colleagues say that a sea level rise of 1 meter in the NYC
area would result in 100-year flood events that occur every 3 to 20 years. Most
coastlines aren’t engineered to handle that frequency of flooding. They say
that population centers are mostly on sedimentary coasts that will make the
impact of future floods even greater.
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