AER scientist Chris Little led the development of an innovative, broadly applicable methodology for analyzing future coastal floods. The research was published today in Nature Climate Change.
"The newly developed technique is a significant contribution because it provides a more comprehensive view of the future coastal flood hazard, in which changes are summarized using a fully probabilistic flood index. The combines approaches to quantify both changes in storminess and increases in the baseline sea level."
According to lead author Christopher Little of Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), “These projections help lay the groundwork for more specific research that will be valuable for adapting to climate change.”
"Now we can combine changes in sea level and storminess into the same analysis, which allows us to assess the coastal flood risk more comprehensively. Similar assessments of so-called joint hazards (for example, heat and humidity, or storm surge and rainfall-driven flooding) are critical to understanding the full scope of climate change risks.”
Read more on this research and announcement:
- Read the full article in Nature Climate Change "Joint projections of US East Coast sea level and storm surge"
- Read the AER press release "AER Leads Research Initiative to Provide More Comprehensive View of Future Coastal Floods"
- View the Earth Institute at Columbia University press release "One-Two Punch of Rising Seas, Bigger Storms May Greatly Magnify U.S. East Coast Floods"