Sea levels on the east coast have risen more in the 20th century than in the last 2,000 years

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A new study can confirm that Atlantic City and other areas of southern New Jersey will one day be submerged by rising sea levels.

A team led by Rutgers University determined that sea levels along the east coast of the US rose faster in the 20th century than in the last 2,000 years – with the fastest rise in the Garden State.

Researchers analyzed levels at six locations in Connecticut, New York City, New Jersey and North Carolina, and revealed that the locations experienced a total of 1.4 inches of sea level rise from 1900 to 2000.

However, southern New Jersey had the highest rates at about 0.63 inches per decade in some areas and 0.6 inches in others.

The spike in sea level is contributed to melting ice and warming of the oceans due to climate change, according to researchers.

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Pictured is dwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey. The photo was taken in October 2016
Here's the same image a month later, highlighting a flooded landscape from rising sea levels

Scientists have long speculated that Atlantic City and other areas of southern New Jersey will one day be submerged by rising sea levels, and a new study can confirm this claim. Pictured is Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey showing how sea levels have risen

“The study looked for the first time at the phenomena that contributed to sea level change over 2,000 years at six locations along the coast, using a sea level budget,” the team shared in a statement.

Researchers chose to use a seal level budget, which increases understanding of the processes that drive sea level change.

The processes are global, regional (including geological, such as subsidence) and local, such as groundwater extraction.

Jennifer S. Walker, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: necessary for regional and local planning and responding to future sea level rise. ‘

Researchers analyzed levels at six locations in Connecticut, New York City, New Jersey and North Carolina, and revealed that the locations experienced a total of 1.4 inches of sea level rise from 1900 to 2000.

Researchers analyzed levels at six locations in Connecticut, New York City, New Jersey and North Carolina, and revealed that the locations experienced a total of 1.4 inches of sea level rise from 1900 to 2000.

‘By learning how different processes vary over time and contribute to changes at sea level, we can more accurately estimate future contributions at specific locations.’

Climate change has become a major concern among the scientific community in recent years, which has also pushed their eyes to low-lying islands, cities and countries.

With melting glaciers and warming oceans, sea levels make such locations more vulnerable to flooding and storm damage.

The Great Hurricane of 1938 plowed through New England, devouring Long Island and Connecticut.

The storm, considered the worst in New England history, left 564 dead, injured more than 1,700 and destroyed some 15,000 infrastructure.

A more recent event occurred in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy swept through southern New Jersey and up to Long Island, New York, leaving nothing but destruction in its path.

It caused $ 70 billion in damage, cut the power of 8.5 million Americans, and destroyed about 650,000 homes.

And scientists link these devastating events to rising sea levels.

Most sea-level budget studies are global and, according to the recent study, are limited to the 20th and 21st centuries.

Researchers led by Rutgers estimate budgets at sea level for longer time frames of more than 2,000 years.

“The goal was to better understand how the processes that drive sea level have changed and may affect future changes, and this sea level budgeting method could be applied in other locations around the world.”

A recent event occurred in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy swept through southern New Jersey and up to Long Island, New York, leaving nothing but destruction in its path. Depicted is the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in Atlantic City

A recent event occurred in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy swept through southern New Jersey and up to Long Island, New York, leaving nothing but destruction in its path. Depicted is the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in Atlantic City

Using a statistical model, scientists developed sea level budgets for six locations, splitting sea level records into global, regional and local components. They found that regional subsidence - the sinking of the land since the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated thousands of years ago - has dominated any site's budget for the past 2,000 years.

Using a statistical model, scientists developed sea level budgets for six locations, splitting sea level records into global, regional and local components. They found that regional subsidence – the sinking of the land since the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated thousands of years ago – has dominated each site’s budget for the past 2,000 years.

Using a statistical model, scientists developed sea level budgets for six locations, splitting sea level records into global, regional and local components.

They found that regional subsidence – the sinking of the land since the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated thousands of years ago – dominates any site’s budget over the past 2,000 years.

Other regional factors, such as ocean dynamics, and site-specific local processes, such as groundwater abstraction causing land to sink, contribute much less to any budget and vary over time and by location.

GLACIER AND ICE LEAVES MELTING WOULD HAVE A ‘DRAMATIC IMPACT’ ON GLOBAL SEA LEVELS

Global sea levels could rise by up to 3 meters if the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica collapses.

Sea-level rise threatens cities from Shanghai to London, to low-lying areas of Florida or Bangladesh, and to entire countries such as the Maldives.

In the UK, for example, an ascent of 6.7 ft (2 meters) or more could result in areas such as Hull, Peterborough, Portsmouth and parts of East London and the Thames Estuary being inundated.

The glacier’s collapse, which could begin over decades, could also flood large cities like New York and Sydney.

Parts of New Orleans, Houston and Miami in the south of the US would also be particularly badly affected.

A 2014 study watched by the union of concerned scientists looked at 52 sea level indicators in communities across the US.

It found that tidal flooding will increase dramatically in many locations on the East and Gulf coast, based on a conservative estimate of predicted sea level rise based on current data.

The results showed that most of these communities will experience a sharp increase in the number and severity of tidal flooding in the coming decades.

By 2030, more than half of the 52 communities in exposed areas studied are expected to experience an average of at least 24 tidal flooding per year, assuming moderate projections of sea level rise. Twenty of these communities could see a tripling or more in tidal flooding.

The mid-Atlantic coast is expected to see some of the largest increases in flood frequency. Places such as Annapolis, Maryland and Washington, DC can expect more than 150 flood floods per year, and several locations in New Jersey can experience 80 or more flood floods.

In the UK, a rise of two meters (6.5 ft) would almost completely submerge large areas of Kent by 2040, according to the results of a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in November 2016.

South coast areas such as Portsmouth, as well as Cambridge and Peterborough would be badly affected.

Towns and villages around the Humber estuary, such as Hull, Scunthorpe and Grimsby, would also experience intense flooding.

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