Miami Beach Coastal Floods Due to High Tides in 2016. Image – B137, (CC SA 4.0)
According to a NASA study, a turn of a natural cycle of the moon combined with the rising sea due to climate change will cause rapid and “dramatic” increases in flooding along the U.S. coast in mid-years 2030, according to a NASA study.
High tide floods (also called annoying floods or sunny day floods) are already a family problem in many cities on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. In 2019, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported more 900 high tide floods of this type.
The natural orbit of the moon is responsible
In accordance with CTV News Canada, the moon’s orbit is not a natural circle, but an elliptical, oscillating path that takes 18.6 years to complete. According to the balance, it is neither new nor dangerous NASA, and was first reported in 1728.
The inclination of the moon changes along its cycle and this movement affects the ebb and flow of the Earth’s tides. For about half of this cycle, high tides are suppressed, keeping sea level rise under control, but during the rest of the cycle, the moon’s hesitation increases the effects of sea level rise. .
“It doesn’t change the strength of the tides or the gravitational forces of the Moon, but it tends to increase the range between the highest and lowest tides of the day,” said Philip Thompson, an assistant professor in the University’s oceanography department. from Hawaii to Manoa and lead author of the study. “In other words, it tends to make the higher tides even higher and the low even lower.”
However, in research published in the Nature Climate Change magazine on June 21, 2021, NASA researchers found that the impact of climate change on rising sea levels will only be amplified by the Moon’s gravitational pull that will cause persistent and dramatic high tides.
What this means for the future is that the “annoying floods” that coastal communities are already dealing with could become widespread for almost every coastal community in this country and the rest of the world by the middle of the next decade. NBC News.
“This is the time when things will start to change quickly,” Thompson said. “When we think about when we need to improve and get things right with our drainage systems and infrastructures, that gives us an objective point.”
The researchers found that from the mid-2030s to the next decade, the changing lunar cycle will cause flood clusters in coastal communities. In St. Petersburg, Florida, for example, high-tide flooding is expected to go from six or seven events a year to 10 times the amount in just over a decade.
“But if it floods 10 or 15 times a month, a company cannot continue to operate its underwater car park. People lose their jobs because they can’t start working. Pit leaks become a public health problem, ”said Thompson.
