Rising Sea Levels Drowning Coasts

Climate Change Giving Rise to Sea Levels

As climate change continues to affect our planet, we're seeing evidence of rising sea levels due to the melting of the Arctics. A study done in October of 2014, released by the Union of Concerned Scientists predict that by 2045, 17 out of 52 locations (analyzed by the Union of Concerned Scientists) on the East Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States will have severe flooding problems.

The researchers used information from the National Climate Assessment on sea level rise projections to help with their predictions. Some of these flooding areas can be expected to triple in the frequency of high-tide floods in the next 15 years. Climate change can be seen as an effect of this since there has been a recorded increase of 8 inches in sea level since pre-industrial times. This rate is only going to increase with time. With much research done by many organizations on this flooding occurrence to support the findings, communities in these coastal areas need to start preparing to see much more flooding.

Picture source: thinkprogress.org

As the above picture shows, this is an estimate of how the U.S. coastal areas will appear if all the ice were to melt. As you can see, Florida is completely under water along with the Eastern and Southern coasts. If this were to happen, it would affect many of the most populated areas in the U.S.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/sea-level-rise_n_5951472.html