sealevel

Fighting off rising seas without reducing humanity’s carbon emissions is like trying to drain a bathtub without turning off the tap. But increasingly, scientists are sounding the alarm on yet another problem compounding the crisis for coastal cities: Their land is also sinking, a phenomenon known as subsidence. The metaphorical tap is still on—as rapid warming turns more and more polar ice into ocean water—and at the same time the tub is sinking into the floor.An alarming new study in the journal Nature shows how bad the…

A salt marsh in Barnstable, Massachusetts, shows signs of erosion and drowning as the sea level rises (December 2, 2022). Credit: Erin Peck Amid climate change, large dam removal projects have gained attention as a solution to the loss of coastal wetlands that reduce flooding, filter water, and provide wildlife habitat. But in a paper appearing in Science, researchers conclude that this strategy won't work in most U.S. rivers.…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The Philippine Sea (PS) is one of the regions with the strongest interannual variability in sea level and upper-layer circulation. During the developing stage of El Niño events, the Philippine Sea shows sea level falling and cyclonic circulation anomaly. However, El Niño is complex, causing diverse Philippine Sea responses across individual events. …

Credit: NIWA New maps from NIWA and the Deep South National Science Challenge show areas across Aotearoa New Zealand that could be inundated by extreme coastal flooding. They show a large storm-tide with the sea-level rise that we are likely to see with climate change. NIWA's Chief Scientist for Coasts and Estuaries Dr. Scott…

Regional setting and ice history. (A) The Eastern Settlement of Southern Greenland. The inset shows the entirety of Greenland; dark gray depicts grounded ice cover at present, light gray is land, and white is ocean. Eight black stars show locations of the Viking sites considered herein and also Nanortalik, where Late Holocene relative sea-level data have been collected (11). B is Brattahlid, D is Dyrnaes, G is Gardar, H is Hvalsey, N is Narsaq, N2 is…

A new study led by scientists at Tulane University reveals that sea levels along the U.S. Southeast and Gulf coasts have rapidly accelerated over the past 12 years, reaching record-breaking rates of about half an inch per year since 2010. The acceleration is attributed to the compounding effects of man-made climate change and natural climate variability. The acceleration extends from the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and into the North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Seas, affecting the…

This cartoon shows the physical and biological processes the research team used to model the storage of carbon in coastal systems under various rates of sea-level rise. Credit: K. Valentine/VIMS. Coastal ecosystems are a natural storehouse for carbon, with policymakers looking to bays, marshes, and seaside forests as nature-based solutions to help combat climate change. But the capacity of these ecosystems to take up carbon…

Credit: Ethan Daniels/Shutterstock Seagrasses are flowering plants that form dense underwater meadows in coastal waters worldwide, from the frigid seas of the Arctic to the warm shallows of the Caribbean. These meadows provide a refuge for young fish, food for grazing sea turtles and manatees, and help to slow climate change by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere up to 35 times faster than rainforests.…

The tidal North River winds through salt marshes in Scituate, Massachusetts. High tides here increased by more than a foot after the 1898 Portland Gale eroded a new inlet to the estuary. Credit: Rocky Geyer A team of researchers led by Brian Yellen, research professor of earth, geographic and climate sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently announced in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface…

Mangrove forests on Pohnpei are archives of sea-level change. Credit: Juliet Sefton, Author provided Sea levels in Micronesia rose much faster over the past 5,000 years than previously thought, according to our new study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This sea-level rise is shown by the…