Global Warming May Cause Flooding of Low Lying Areas

Global warming can cause flooding of low lying areas more frequently, a study reveals.

Researchers from Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that regions such as the New York city metropolitan area, that experience a disastrous flood every century, could instead become submerged every one or two decades.

Using various global climate models, the team developed a simulation tool that can predict the severity of future flooding an area can expect, the journal Nature Climate Change reported.

The researchers used New York city as a test case and found that with fiercer storms and a three-foot rise in sea-level due to climate change, "100-year floods" -- a depth of roughly 5.7 feet above tide level that occurs roughly once a century -- could more likely occur every three to 20 years.

What today are New York city's "500-year floods" -- or waters that reach more than nine feet deep -- could, with climate change, occur every 25 to 240 years, the researchers wrote, according to a university statement.

The research is not only the first to examine the future intensity of storm surges, but also to offer a tool for estimating an area's vulnerability, said co-author Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton.

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"Coastal managers in cities like New York make daily decisions about costly infrastructure that would be affected by such storms. They need a reliable indicator of the risk," he said.

Source-IANS