Moon’s Wobbly Orbit and Rising Sea Levels Will Cause Record Flooding in the 2030s
The United States could see nuisance flooding in the 2030s more often than ever before, according to a new study published on June 21 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The paper takes into account all known factors that can influence floods—both oceanic, like climate change-related sea level rise, and astronomical, like the moon’s influence on tides, reports Rachel Trent for CNN. The researchers predict that in the mid-2030s, the effects of the lunar cycle combined with sea level rise will cause coastal areas of the U.S. to see near-daily tidal flooding for a month or more, George Dvorsky reports for Gizmodo.
High tides don’t reach the same peak every year. The peak depends on the alignment of the moon’s orbit with the Earth and the sun, which changes gradually along an 18.6-year cycle. Nuisance floods are minor floods that can occur at high tide, often causing water to pool in low-lying roads, parking lots and subway stations. As the name suggests, nuisance floods don’t cause immediate catastrophic damage. But they can be inconvenient to work around and strain infrastructure over time.
“It’s the accumulated effect over time that will have an impact,” says University of Hawaii oceanographer Phil Thompson, the lead author of the study, in a statement by NASA. “If it floods ten or 15 times a month, a business can’t keep operating with its parking lot under water. People lose their jobs because they can’t get to work. Seeping cesspools become a public health issue.”
