Climate change acts on human habitats much faster than expected, a new study suggests. The United States could be dramatically affected in the upcoming years due to sea level rise, storm surge and heavy rainfall. There are all consequences of climate change which expose large areas such as NY, Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Boston to an extremely high degree of risk.
No less than 40% of the US population lives in coastal cities, where flooding is already affecting large built-up areas, submerging subway lines and electricity stations.
Storm dynamics has changed with time, as global warming has started taking action to a serious level. Weather changes on a yearly basis, degrading entire ecosystems and modifying the pace of nature. Everything put together acts like a vicious circle which seems to take us on a never ending path of disintegration.
Flooding is a great problem in US nowadays, according to a nationwide study, published in Nature Climate Change. Researchers have noted that the possibility of a coastal city to experience severe rainfall and storm levels increase at the same time is extremely likely to happen nowadays compared to the middle of the 20th century. The fatal combo has amplified the risk of flooding in coastal countries over the last 100 years.
Although storms are not as aggressive as hurricanes and tornadoes that have lately taken over large territories of the US, they bring dramatic consequences to inhibited areas. According to a report, between 2010 and 2014 the average flood claim was estimated to $42.000. The data was counted outside the number of people who are displaced as a consequence to a severe flooding event. Researchers embarked on a mission to figure out which factors contribute to flooding, as this the essential information that could help in finding the perfect area to rebuild a city.
New York is presently one of the most affected areas due to storm surge and high precipitation which severely affected the city in the past few years. Seemingly, storm surge weather patterns lead to high precipitation. A recent reevaluation of potential flooding scenarios that include the possibility of compound events doubled the odds of flooding in the cosmopolitan area.
Storm surges and heavy rainfall happen more often than not on East Coast, compared to the West, according to the latest data coming from official reports. The reason for that are the tropical cyclones and hurricanes that are more common in the East. As a consequence, NY City is very likely to experience a weather scenario that combines both storm surge and heavy rain to a double degree, compared to 60 years ago. The severe risk of flood in the US due to climate change asks for rapid action to be taken in order to avoid most dramatic consequences that could lead to complete failure of entire urban infrastructures.