WASHINGTON — Rising sea level fueled by global warming over the next century could flood 3.7 million people in 544 U.S. cities temporarily, according to a new method of looking at the risks of rising seas published in two scientific papers.
The cities that have the most people living within 3 feet of high tide — the projected sea level rise by the year 2100 made by many scientists and computer models — are in Florida, Louisiana and New York.
New York City, often not thought of as a city prone to flooding, has 141,000 people at risk, which is second only to New Orleans’ 284,000.
The two big southeast Florida counties, Miami-Dade and Broward, have 312,000 people at-risk combined.
The studies look at people who live in homes within 3 feet of high tide, whereas old studies looked just at elevation above sea level, according to work published
today in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research and an accompanying report by Climate Central, a New Jersey-based group of scientists and journalists who do research about climate change.
That’s an important distinction because using high tide is more accurate for flooding impacts, said study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, a scientist at the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment.
Sea level has already risen about 8 inches since 1880 because warmer waters expand, said lead author Ben Strauss, a scientist at Climate Central.
