Tidal floods are coming to more cities, thanks to the Moon's wobble

FLOODING DAYS ALMOST TRIPLE AS SEA LEVELS AND TIDE AMPLIFICATION FROM THE MOON CROSS A TIPPING POINT.

TIDAL FLOODS CAN SHUT DOWN HIGHWAYS, turn parking lots into lakes, and spread runoff from overwhelmed sewage systems. And while they've been more common to low-lying US East Coast cities like Miami or Charleston, South Carolina, coastal towns that have historically stayed dry could soon find themselves underwater, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change.

Until five years ago, tidal floods in Hawaii, for example, were a rarity, says Phil Thompson, PhD, the study's lead author and a physical oceanographer at the University of Hawaii. If sea levels rise in line with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Intermediate Sea Level Rise scenario (roughly one metre globally by the end of the century), Thompson and his fellow researchers predict a dramatic increase in tidal flooding events in some cities in the coming decades.

The planet has warmed more than 0.5°C over the past century. This warming has spurred polar ice sheets to melt and has driven the expansion of seawater, adding about 3 mm of water to the world's oceans annually. By the end of this decade, sea level is projected to have risen 90 mm to 178 mm compared with the year 2000.