New Jersey Shore's sea-level is expected to rise significantly by mid-century - making the Garden State more vulnerable to flooding, according to a recent study.
Based on their research, geoscientists at Rutgers and Tufts University's believe that by the middle of the century, the one-in-10 year flood level at Atlantic City would "exceed any flood known there from the observational record, including Superstorm Sandy." They project that the shore's sea-level will rise by about 1.5 feet by 2050 and 2.5 feet in the next century - 11 to 15 inches higher than the average for sea-level rise globally.
"Sea level has been rising in the mid-Atlantic region at a foot per century as a result of global average sea-level rise," Ken Miller, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Rutgers' School of Arts and Sciences.
In a prepared statement, Miller said the Jersey Shore's sea-level is expected to increase by more than a foot because of "sediment compaction" caused by natural forces and groundwater withdrawal.
However, Miller attributes the rate of sea-level rise, globally and regionally, to melting of ice sheets and the warming of the oceans.
"The geological sea-level records show that it's extremely likely that sea-level in New Jersey was rising faster in the 20th century than in any century in the last 4300 years," Andrew Kemp, an assistant professor of earth and ocean sciences at Tufts, said in a statement.
Researchers said sea-level rise in the mid-Atlantic region also results from changes in ocean dynamics.
"Most ocean models project that the Gulf Stream will weaken as a result of climate change - perhaps causing as much as a foot of additional regional sea-level rise over this century," Kopp, an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences and associate director of the Rutgers Energy Institute, said in a statement.
Depending on how sensitive the Gulf Stream is to warming and how fast the ice sheets melt in response, sea-level rise could be even higher - 2.3 feet by mid-century and 5.9 feet by the end of the century.
Researchers said sea-level rise could be higher depending on how sensitive the Gulf Stream is to warming and how fast the ice sheets melt in response to that warming.
Their research was published in the inaugural issued of Earth's Future.
