According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, and other U.S. government agencies, the rise in ocean height over the next 30 years could equal the total rise seen over the previous 100 years.
Findings of Report:
According to a new report by an interagency sea level rise task force that includes NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and other federal agencies, coastal flooding will increase significantly over the next 30 years due to sea-level rise.
The report, titled ‘Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States, concludes that sea level along U.S. coastlines will rise by 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 centimetres) on average above current levels by 2050.
The report, an update to a previous report from 2017, forecasts sea level to 2150 and, for the first time, provides near-term projections for the next 30 years. These reports are used by federal, state, and local agencies to inform their plans for anticipating and mitigating the effects of sea-level rise.
"This report backs up previous research and confirms what we've long suspected: sea levels are rising at an alarming rate, endangering communities all over the world." "The science is undeniable, and immediate action is required to avert a climate crisis that is already underway," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "NASA remains committed to protecting our home planet by expanding our monitoring capabilities and ensuring that our climate data is not only accessible but also understandable."
The task force developed their near-term sea level rise projections based on a better understanding of how the processes that contribute to rising seas – such as melting glaciers and ice sheets and complex interactions between ocean, land, and ice – will affect ocean height.
"That understanding has really advanced since the 2017 report, which gave us more certainty over how much sea-level rise we'll get in the coming decades," Ben Hamlington, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and one of the update's lead authors, said.
NASA sea level researchers have spent years studying how the Earth's changing climate affects the ocean. Their work includes forecasting how much coastal flooding communities in the United States will face in the next ten years, assisting in the visualization of IPCC data on the global sea-level rise using an online visualization tool, and launching satellites that contribute data to a decades-long record of global sea surface height.
