According to a new study, the lowering of the mid-Atlantic is accelerating the sea level rise due to global warming, which is already sinking the land along the East Coast. But, as the sea level rise would not be enough, the coastlines are collapsing slowly but steadily.
Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Peter Huybers, Frank B. Baird Jr., Professor of Science Jerry Mitrovica, and Christopher Piecuch from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution joined their knowledge and conducted a comprehensive study to assess the impact of sea level rise. The scientists used a multitude of instruments from tide gauges to GPS data to reveal that, indeed, sea level rise is causing the land to sink along the east coast of the US.
“What we are seeing at a large scale, and this was a surprise to me, is a very clear pattern that you would expect if the response to the last ice age were the primary control on the differential rates of sea-level rise across the eastern US,” said Huybers. “Now, thousands of years after the ice is gone, the mid-Atlantic crust is still subsiding,” he added.
Sea Level Rise Is Already Sinking The Land Along The East Coast
“In New England, there is not too much additional sea-level rise from land motion because it’s near the hinge point. The bulge caused by the ice sheet was centered on the mid-Atlantic, and because it’s still settling down, the relative rise of sea level in the mid-Atlantic is about twice the global average,” Professor Huybers explained.
“The fact that the mid-Atlantic is subsiding because of long-term geologic processes means that it will continue for centuries and millennia, in addition to whatever other changes in sea level occur. The mid-Atlantic is already having to cope with routine coastal flooding, and this problem is only going to get worse with time,” Huybers said.
In short, that means that the sea level rise will continue and will be sinking more and more land along the East Coast as global warming will keep going untackled. The consequences would be catastrophic, eventually, for coastal cities around the world, but especially for those along the US East Coast.
