Coastal urban cities are in for some particularly rough storms if climate change goes on the way it projects to be going.
With the warming globe linked to an increase of severe storms, the nation's coasts are most vulnerable, urban areas most of all. Just look to Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy for examples.
But there is another threat facing urban coastal cities. According to Climate Central, less severe storms, like Hurricane Isaac, can be seriously disastrous for coastal cities when inhabitants are not preparing the way would for a worse storm.
In 2012, Isaac raised lake levels six to nine feet, Climate Central noted, flooding New York City with seawater and freshwater. In a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers dubbed this sensation "compound flooding."
"Nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population resides in coastal counties," study lead author Thomas Wahl, of the University of South Florida College of Marine Science and the University of Siegen in Germany, said in a press release. "Flooding can have devastating impacts for these low-lying, densely populated and heavily developed regions and have wide-ranging social, economic and environmental consequences."
The study suggests the problem with compound flooding is they are not treated with enough urgency even when meteorologists can see it coming.
"Our results demonstrate the importance of assessing compound flooding and its links to weather and climate, but we need more research at local scales to determine impacts," Wahl and his colleagues said in their study. "That research will require complex, integrated modeling experiments that investigate surface and drainage flows and include storm surge, rainfall and river discharge. In light of climate variability and change, it will be important to develop a detailed understanding of future patterns of storm surge and high precipitation amounts occurring in tandem."
