Augustus UR - A Game of Inches

While continuing to research my topic I came across a little article that describes the effects of sea level rise in a simpler way: Flooding is like having a nearly full bath tub and adding even a little bit of water will make it overflow. The sea level has risen steadily from year to year now at ~3.2 cm/year we are starting to see an increase in flooding and water damage, especially in the coastal regions of Florida.

So, to put it into perspective from 1950 the sea level has risen ~8 inches (NOAA, 2018), 8 inches in the grand scheme of things sounds irrelevant but when protecting our coast, it is a huge issue. Something else to consider is that almost half of that has occurred in the last 10 years. This rise in sea level has increased flooding incidents nationally 200% (NOAA, 2017), but here in Florida we have seen a 400% increase in the past ten years (Ocean & Coastal Management, 2016) this is because certain causes, like the changes in the Gulf Stream or land sinkage, impact different coastal areas differently and thus the change in flooding varies by location.


So where are all these floods coming from? Well with the added 8 inches of water and then factor in flooding, especially king tides (Tides when sun and moon are in alignment) which can be up to a foot more than regular high tide we start to see flooding on even sunny days. Our drainage systems are meant to take excess rainwater and bring it to the ocean but when you have these extreme high tides the pressure from the ocean and tides can cause them to back up resulting in flooding. Sea level influences hurricanes as well, with even a little bit more water it increases the amount of water the hurricane can push up onto land, even if the hurricane doesn’t make landfall we experience flooding like when Hurricane Matthew passed by Florida. With that in mind its also predicted that huge 100 year storm surges by 2050 will occur every 10 years or less. (Claudia Tebaldi, 2012)

Works Cited

Claudia Tebaldi, et al. B. H. (2012, March 14). Modelling sea level rise impacts on storm surges along US coasts. Environmental Research Letters Volume 7, Number 1.

NOAA. (2017). NOAA study on Nuisance Flooding. Retrieved from National Centers for Enviromental Information: www.ncdc.noaa.gov

NOAA. (2018). NOAA Tides & Currents - Station Water Levels. Retrieved from NOAA: www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov

Ocean & Coastal Management. (2016). Ocean & Coastal Management Research Study 2016. Retrieved from Sciencedirect: www.sciencedirect.com

Sealevelrise.org. (n.d.). Flooding: A Game of Inches. Retrieved from Sea Level Rise: https://sealevelrise.org/florida/flooding/

Questions!
First, Janice sec. 23. asks I'm not sure I fully understand the NAO. What is it and what impact does it have on climate and weather? 
So the NAO is known as the North Atlantic Oscillation, it measures surface sea-level pressure difference between Subtropical and Subpolar zones. So, a positive NAO usually results in above normal temperatures and precipitation and vice versa for negative, since it is an oscillation it can change from a “positive mode” to a “negative mode” yearly or they can happen decades apart. I hope I answered your question there.

Next, Sarah section 101. asks How does barometric pressure impact sea level rise? and does this vary based on location? 
So barometric pressure or atmospheric pressure, is quite literally the weight of air molecules stacked up above the surface. At normal conditions the Barometric pressure is about 14.7 pounds per square inch and 1013 hectopascals (hPa). So, if you think of it in terms of weight on water if that pressure is increased it lowers the water table and if it decreases the water table goes up. It relates to water levels where if the air pressure increased 1hPa it would decrease water levels by 1cm. This does vary by location, higher altitudes have less air molecules so the barometric pressure is lower in these locations and higher in lower lying areas. It’s something I never took into account either until I started this research.

 Emma Sills 21 WG asks What do we know already about local tides and connections with climate change? Do we know anything, or is this a very new piece of technology and area to be looking into?
We can see big differences in our tides here in Florida. There are two major components to rising sea level, Thermal Expansion and melting ice sheets, Greenland is a major one! With both off these factors even a few cm can make a huge impact on our tides. Since there is an increase in the normal water table now the tides get higher than normal, add a moderate wind and you can easily have flooding, it's more than what our safety precautions like sea walls and storm drains are capable of handling. I'll add a little excerpt of an interview Dr. Clay Henderson, executive director of Stetson University's Institute of Water and Environmental Resilience, on the matter of local tides "Until the last couple of years, the only time the water would have come over the seawall would have been for a named tropical event or one of the extraordinary nor'easters, the water came out of the banks on cloudless, breezeless days." So much is known on this topic, we can only predict what will happen in the future, but from our past we can see this all getting out of control. Now people are really starting to pay attention to the topic and it's something everyone should be looking into, especially if you live in Florida.

Thank you all so much for the questions!!!