Moon and the sea will cause months-long floods in 2030

Experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate that sea ​​levels may rise by between 60 centimeters and 1.1 meters by the end of this century if emissions are high. For an optimistic scenario, the figure could be between 30 and 60 centimeters by that same date.

In any case, these figures can make us think that the world's oceans will rise at the same rate, in a similar way to what water does in a bathtub. However, as Anders Carlson, a paleoclimatologist at the Oregon Glacier Institute, explains, it's actually more like a spinning bathtub that changes shape, moves up and down, and has water going in and out of different drains and through different drains.

"Where the water will eventually spill over the edge of the tub is influenced by many things, " he notes. For example, on a regional and local scale the movement of tectonic plates, changes in the coastal geography, and even anomalies in gravity caused by bodies outside our planet, such as the Moon, can influence.

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Moon and the sea will cause floods in 2030

In this sense, a study led by NASA scientists indicates that the gradual rise in sea level, coupled with a lunar cycle, will make the coasts of the United States welcome 2030 with "dramatic" increases in the number of floods.

"This work shows that high tides will exceed known flood thresholds throughout the country more frequently," NASA says in a statement in which they also warn that depending on the positions of the Moon, Earth, and the Sun, floods can last for days or months.

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“The combination of the gravitational pull of the Moon, rising sea levels, and climate change will continue to exacerbate coastal flooding on our shores and around the world. The cumulative effects of these floods will be what really affects us, ”says NASA.

According to the space agency, the Moon performs a regular wobble that takes 18.6 years to complete. In one of the halves of that cycle, the Earth's regular daily tides are suppressed, that is, the high tides become lower, and the lows higher.

In the other half of the cycle, the tides amplify: high tides rise more than normal, and low tides decrease. In essence, this wobble is not a problem in normal situations, but with climate change that has changed.

"The first half of the 18.6-year lunar cycle counteracts the effect of rising sea levels at high tides, while the other half increases the effect, " they explain from NASA. For now, the Moon is in its amplification phase and experts have not noticed a significant increase with this help, although that may change in the mid-1930s.

The researchers discovered these tipping points in the number of floods by studying 89 tide gauge locations scattered across the United States except Alaska. They then created a statistical framework that mapped sea level rise scenarios and the various factors driving floods that are widely used by the National Office for Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“From a planning perspective, it is important to know when we will see an increase. Understanding that all its events are grouped into a particular month, or that it could have more severe flooding in the second half of a year than in the first, that is useful information ”, concludes Ben Hamlington, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the NASA in Southern California.

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