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Sinking Shores and Rising Seas Will Inundate 24 US Coastal Cities
Flooding could plague 1 in 50 residents, a new study estimates.
Flooding in Hampton, New Hampshire – on the Atlantic Coast – in January 2024 stormsCharles Krupa/AP
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Flooding could affect one out of every 50 residents in 24 coastal cities in the United States by 2050, a study led by Virginia Tech researchers suggests.
The study, published this month in Nature, shows how the combination of land subsidence—in this case, the sinking of shoreline terrain—and rising sea levels can lead to the flooding of coastal areas sooner than previously anticipated by research that had focused primarily on sea level rise scenarios.
“One of the things we wanted to do with this study is really emphasize the impact of land subsidence, which is often not reflected in most of the discussion around sea level rise,” said Leonard Ohenhen, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at Virginia Tech’s Earth Observation and Innovation Lab.
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The study combines measurements of land subsidence obtained from satellites with sea level rise projections and tide charts, offering a more holistic projection of potential flooding risks in 32 cities located along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. “We tend to think of the consequences of climate change as a long term effect…and that often leads to underpreparation.”
The satellites bounce signals off the Earth and measure the time it takes for them to return, allowing the researchers to determine whether the distance between the ground and the satellites is increasing or decreasing. Less distance between the ground and the satellites would mean that the land is rising, while increases in that distance would show that the land is sinking.
The study found that out of the 32 coastal cities examined, 24 are sinking more than 2 millimeters per year. Half of these cities have specific areas that are sinking faster than the global sea levels are rising.
Up to 500,000 individuals living in these regions may be impacted in the next 30 years, with potentially one in every 35 private properties facing flooding damages.
Most conversations around climate change impacts involve projections for the end of the century, Ohenhen said. The team’s goal with this study was to look at the short term and show the existing hazards. “We tend to think of the consequences of climate change as a long term effect,” he said. “Which makes people feel like you cannot really account for all of the changes or the things that will happen before that time. And that often leads to underpreparation.”
The year 2050, often cited in climate discussions, is not an end point but rather a marker of the immediacy of the issue, said Robert Nicholls, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and professor at the University of East Anglia in the UK, who was a contributing author to the study.
The research anticipates that the 32 cities under consideration will collectively house approximately 25 million people and 10 million properties by 2050. It found ethnic minorities, especially in the Gulf Coast region, could face disproportionate impacts.“It’s important that these communities that are at risk really are using the tools available to try to plan for sea level rise.”
Minorities constitute roughly 43 percent of the population in the 11 Gulf Coast cities the study includes. However, they are expected to represent between 64 to 72 percent of the population at risk of flooding by 2050, the research shows. African Americans, in particular, are projected to make up over half of this vulnerable population.
The first step in tackling the challenge of flooding isn’t necessarily adaptation, but rather recognizing that it’s a problem, said Nicholls.
“It’s really a wake up call to think about how we’re going to live with this changing interface between the land and the sea,” Nicholls said of the study.
Structural adaptation strategies vary widely, from building protective walls to raising buildings on stilts or elevated mounds of earth, a more common practice in many areas of the US, Nicholls said. These strategies can help protect properties from flooding.
Natural habitats and coastal ecosystems have some degree of protection against sea level rise hazards, but they won’t protect communities from all of the challenges that sea level rise could pose, Siddharth Narayan, an assistant professor at East Carolina University, said.
“So it’s going to be a combination of long-term structural adaptations and solutions wherever possible and conserving and maintaining our natural spaces to add a little bit of a buffer,” Narayan said.
Marsh restoration, coral reefs and dunes can provide a natural barrier, said Andra Garner, an assistant professor at Rowan University.
It’s still uncertain what sea level rise impacts might look like in the future, Garner said. That uncertainty, she said, comes from a lot of places—including human behavior.
Garner was the lead author of a 2023 study published in Earth’s Future, which surveyed 54 coastal locations in the US and found that more than half underestimated the future sea level rise projections by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“It’s important that these communities that are at risk really are using the tools available to try to plan for sea level rise and to be working towards solutions that can benefit those that are exposed,” Garner said.
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Polar vortex is ‘spinning backwards’ above Arctic after major reversal event
By Harry Baker
published yesterday
Earlier this month, a sudden atmospheric warming event caused the Arctic’s polar vortex to reverse its trajectory. The swirling ring of cold air is now spinning in the wrong direction, which has triggered a record-breaking “ozone spike” and could impact global weather patterns.
- https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/weather/polar-vortex-is-spinning-backwards-above-arctic-after-major-reversal-event
The polar vortex is a key driver of the polar jet stream (seen here). (Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)
The polar vortex circling the Arctic is swirling in the wrong direction after surprise warming in the upper atmosphere triggered a major reversal event earlier this month. It is one of the most extreme atmospheric U-turns seen in recent memory.
In the past, disruptions to the polar vortex — a rotating mass of cold air that circles the Arctic — have triggered extremely cold weather and storms across large parts of the U.S..
The current change in the vortex’s direction probably won’t lead to a similar “big freeze.” But the sudden switch-up has caused a record-breaking “ozone spike” above the North Pole.
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The polar vortex is most prominent during winter months and extends into the stratosphere — the second layer of the atmosphere up to around 30 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface. The vortex spins counterclockwise with wind speeds of around 155 mph (250 km/h), which is around the same speed as a Category 5 hurricane, according to the U.K. Met Office. A similar vortex also encircles Antarctica during the southern winter.
Polar vortices occasionally reverse temporarily. These events can last for days, weeks or months and are caused by sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), when the temperatures in the stratosphere climb by as much as 90 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) in the space of a couple of days, according to the Met Office.
Related: ‘One of the biggest on record’: Ozone hole bigger than North America opens above Antarctica
The sudden warming is caused by “planetary waves” in the atmosphere — compression waves formed when air rises into a region of different density and is pushed back downward by the force of Earth’s spin. This process disrupts or reverses the vortex flow.
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The current reversal event in the Arctic began on March 4. However, the winds are starting to slow down, hinting that the vortex will return to its normal trajectory soon, Spaceweather.com reported.
“It was a substantial reversal,” Amy Butler, a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and author of NOAA’s new polar vortex blog, told Spaceweather.com. The speed of the reversed winds puts the event in the top six on record, she added.
Disruptions to the polar vortex can impact weather in the U.S., such as in 2019 when a massive cold front descended across the Midwest. These extreme weather events occur when the polar vortex deforms the jet stream — an air current that surrounds the polar vortex — exposing lower latitudes to large blobs of icy Arctic air.
This month’s disruption did not change the shape of the jet stream, so weather patterns are expected to remain largely unaffected, according to Spaceweather.com.
However, the change in air temperature around the Arctic has sucked up large amounts of ozone from lower latitudes, creating a temporary ozone spike — the opposite of an ozone hole. Currently, there is more ozone surrounding the Arctic than at this time during any other year on record, according to Spaceweather.com. However, this ozone spike will disappear after the polar vortex returns to normal
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The current reversal is the second of its kind this year, following a smaller event in January that did cause a brief cold snap in some states, Butler wrote in NOAA’s polar vortex blog.
Historical records show that SSW events are more likely to occur during El Niño or La Niña, the two contrasting phases of a natural cycle of planet-wide warming and cooling. During these phases, global weather systems become more unstable, which sets the stage for more frequent reversal events, Butler wrote in the NOAA blog.
We are currently in the midst of a major El Niño, which could make further reversals or disruptions more likely over the next year or so.
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How the H5N1 bird flu threatens the very existence of birds and mammals
The worst affected are marine mammals. More than 20,000 sea lions and a handful of dolphins have died in Chile and Peru due to the infection. There have been reports of deaths of seals on the east and west coasts of the US.
Written by Alind Chauhan
New Delhi | Updated: March 28, 2024 12:29 IST
Tens of thousands of seals and sea lions in different parts of the world have recently died due to the bird flu. (Representational image/Wikimedia Commons)
Since 2020, a highly pathogenic type of bird flu, H5N1, has been spreading across the globe, posing an existential threat to birds and wildlife. The virus has infected birds in more than 80 countries (as of December 2023) and resulted in culling of millions of chickens and turkeys at commercial poultry farms. It also struck numerous species of wild birds, such as gulls and terns, killing them by thousands.
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The more worrying sign, however, is the rapid spread of the flu — once largely confined to birds — among mammals. For instance, tens of thousands of seals and sea lions in different parts of the world have died due to the disease. The infection has also infiltrated mainland Antarctica for the time in history.
In January, Dr Chris Walzer, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Executive Director of Health, in a statement, said: “It (H5N1) has infected over 150 wild and domestic avian species around the globe as well as dozens of mammalian species. The bird flu outbreak is the worst globally and also in US history, with hundreds-of-millions of birds dead since it first turned up in domestic waterfowl in China in 1996.”
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Here is a look at what bird flu is, how it is impacting different kinds of animals, and why the virus is spreading at such a large scale.
What is bird flu?
Bird flu, also known as avian flu, refers to an infectious viral illness that mainly infects and spreads among poultry and some wild birds. There are different strains of bird flu virus, which have been circulating for a very long time among at least 100 bird species, including wild waterfowl, such as ducks and geese, without much harming them.
From time to time, a form of the flu virus jumps from wild birds to poultry farms, and replicates in cramped warehouses of farmed birds. It then quickly evolves into a highly pathogenic flu virus that causes a larger wave of illness and death than usual among birds.
The currently circulating type of H5N1 is one such highly pathogenic flu virus. It has “descended from a virus that caused an outbreak on a goose farm in Guangdong, China, in 1996. That virus — one of a type of virus known as H5N1 — was highly pathogenic and killed more than 40 per cent of the farm birds it infected,” according to a report by Vox.
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The new version of H5N1 first emerged in Europe in 2020 and then rapidly reached Europe, Africa, and Asia. By late 2021, it had spread to North America and in the fall of 2022, it appeared in South America. In February 2024, the virus stormed through mainland Antarctica.
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How has H5N1 impacted animals across the world?
Apart from the farm birds, the virus has severely impacted wild birds. “First, Great Skuas began dying across islands in Scotland in summer 2021,” according to a report by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). “Then in winter 2021/22 on the Solway Firth, bird flu killed a third of the Svalbard breeding population of Barnacle Geese – at least 13,200 birds. In winter 2022/23, up to 5,000 Greenland Barnacle Geese died on Islay, as well as hundreds of ducks, swans, gulls and other geese species. Birds of prey such as Peregrine Falcon, Hen Harrier, Buzzard, White-tailed Eagle and Golden Eagle have also been testing positive.”
Some wild birds, which are already on the verge of extinction, have also been hit. At least 21 of the endangered California condors have died from the virus in 2023 alone, which is nearly 6 per cent of the population of the roughly 330 birds that were believed to live in the wild as of the end of 2021, according to the US National Park Service, The Wildlife Society said.
The biggest concern is the spread of the virus among mammals, though. Outbreaks among foxes, pumas, skunks, and both black and brown bears in North America have been reported. In Spain and Finland, farmed minks have been infected. A report by Forbes said: “This is especially dangerous because these small mammals — which, like poultry, are kept in filthy, overcrowded and unhealthy conditions — provide ample opportunities for viral reassortment so it can easily begin to infect other mammals… whilst simultaneously increasing its virulence.”
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The worst affected are marine mammals. More than 20,000 sea lions and a handful of dolphins have died in Chile and Peru due to the infection. There have been reports of deaths of seals on the east and west coasts of the US. Thousands of elephant seals have also been killed in Argentina.
In his statement, Dr Walzer said: “Sampling efforts suggest that more than 95 per cent of the Southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) pups born along 300 km of the Patagonia coastline (southern end of South America) died at the end of 2023. It’s the first report of massive elephant seal mortality in the area from any cause in the last half-century. The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along the breeding beaches can only be described as apocalyptic.”
Humans are also at risk but they rarely contract bird flu. Most of the cases of human infection involve people who have come in contact with a large number of sick birds at poultry farms. This means that humans are likely to get infected when there is a huge viral load.
What’s behind the large-scale spread?
The exact factors behind the large outbreaks of the bird flu are still largely unknown. Some scientists, however, suggest that one reason could be climate change.
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According to studies, soaring global temperatures impact the behaviour of birds in such a way that it exacerbates the spread of the flu. These birds are forced to move into new territories and mix with species that they usually don’t interact with, which possibly boosts the chances for the virus to spread even further.
Higher sea surface temperatures might also be at play. For example, warmer sea temperatures near northern Chile have led to a fall in the forage fish population and that has made sea lions weaker and more susceptible to disease, Liesbeth van der Meer, director of the environmental group Oceana in Chile, told the Associated Press.
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Researchers demonstrate that forests trap airborne microplastics, acting as terrestrial sinks
by Japan Women’s University
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-forests-airborne-microplastics-terrestrial.html#google_vignette
A research group led by Japan Women’s University finds that airborne microplastics adsorb to the epicuticular wax on the surface of forest canopy leaves, and that forests may act as terrestrial sinks for airborne microplastics.
Think of microplastics, and you might think of the ones accumulating in the world’s oceans. However, they are also filling the sky and the air we breathe. Now, it has been discovered that forests might be acting as a sink for these airborne microplastics, offering humanity yet another crucial service.
In a study recently published in Environmental Chemistry Letters, a multi-institutional research group led by Professor Miyazaki Akane of Japan Women’s University has used a new technique to measure the levels of microplastics adhering to the leaves of trees, revealing that forests are potentially acting as terrestrial sinks for these particles.
Microplastics have come into public focus within the last decade because of their effects on the environment and human health. Airborne microplastics are tiny plastic particulates(less than 100 µm) that become suspended in the atmosphere and dispersed throughout the environment, but it has been unclear where they end up. Forests have been known to accumulate airborne pollutants, but their ability to capture airborne microplastics has been poorly understood.
“We investigated airborne microplastics on konara oak tree leaves in a small forest in Tokyo,” says lead author of the study, Natsu Sunaga. “We wanted to determine a reliable method for analyzing levels of these microplastics on leaf surfaces, and how exactly airborne microplastics become trapped by leaves.”
The team examined the leaves of Quercus serrata, a species of oak representative of Japanese forests. To extract the plastics, the leaves were treated using three processes: washing with ultrapure water, simultaneous treatment with ultrasonic waves and washing with ultrapure water, and treatment with an alkaline solution of 10% potassium hydroxide.
“We found that airborne microplastics strongly adsorb to the epicuticular wax on the leaf surface,” explains Akane Miyazaki, senior author. “In other words, these particles accumulate when they stick to the waxy surface coating of leaves.”
The team discovered that the first two treatments—rinsing with ultrapure water alone or in combination with ultrasonic waves—were insufficient for accurately determining the levels of airborne microplastics on forest canopy leaves. Treatment with alkaline potassium hydroxide, however, removed both the epicuticular wax and the substances adhered to it, proving to be an effective method for detecting airborne microplastics stuck to leaf surfaces. Crucially, previous studies that used only the first two methods may have underestimated the number of plastics adhering to leaf surfaces.
“Based on our findings, we estimate that the Quercus serrata forests of Japan (~32,500 km2) trap approximately 420 trillion airborne microplastics per year in their canopies,” states Sunaga. “This indicates that forests may act as terrestrial sinks for airborne microplastics.”
How the accumulation of these microplastics will affect forest ecosystems, including ecosystem functions and soil health, is unknown, and this will undoubtedly be an area of further research. For now, we know that forests and even roadside canopies might reduce the amount of plastic entering our lungs, and for that we have yet another reason to thank trees.
More information: Natsu Sunaga et al, Alkaline extraction yields a higher number of microplastics in forest canopy leaves: implication for microplastic storage, Environmental Chemistry Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s10311-024-01725-3
Provided by Japan Women’s University
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