Airports, subway tunnels, and nuclear plants are at risk along the U.S. East Coast as the ground sinks and sea levels rise Weather Network May. 17, 2024, A recent study found that land subsidence—the ground sinking in elevation—is a growing hazard along the U.S. East Coast, and it’s one that puts millions of people at risk in some of the continent’s most densely populated cities. Flooding is an ever-present hazard for communities along the coast. Every major storm serves as a constant reminder that living near the ocean is a precarious balancing act. While most folks are prepared to deal with rising waters rushing inland, few are ready for the consequences of the land sinking beneath our feet.
Subsidence compounds the effects of sea level rise........Scientists have long warned about the dangerous effects of sea level rise. It’s already a problem in Charleston, South Carolina, which routinely experiences coastal flooding during both storms and high tides. It’s likely that sea level rise plays a significant factor in this tidal flooding on otherwise calm days. Over time, that elevation loss could expose more areas to the effects of sea level rise, storm surge flooding, and infrastructure damage from the stress of the changing land itself.
Some cities are sinking faster than others.......Researchers from Virginia Tech and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) analyzed satellite data from 2007 and 2020 to measure how much the land sank or rose along the East Coast from Maine all the way to the southern tip of Florida. The analysis found that most coastal cities are subsiding at a rate of 1 mm per year. That may not seem like much, but some communities are subsiding at a rate of 5+ mm per year. A few high-population cities are subsiding at a sharp clip. Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, are each home to about 150,000 people. Each of these low-lying cities on the southeastern coast are sinking at more than 4 mm per year—a particularly harrowing prospect for flood-stricken Charleston.
Atlantic City, New Jersey, is also sinking at the same rate. This popular tourist destination is particularly vulnerable to landfalling storms, and parts of the area are still recovering from Hurricane Sandy more than a decade later. Much of North America remains depressed from the weight of glaciers that covered the continentmore than 10,000 years ago. The land is still bouncing back from the weight of those glaciers. This pattern on its own should lead to an overall net rise in elevations over time. However, widespread subsidence is working against the land adjusting from the last ice age. Researchers worked to identify several factors driving this sinking trend along the East Coast....read on and watch the Videos...... https://www.