US coastlines will face increasing flooding in the mid 2030s thanks to the regular lunar cycle that will magnify rising sea levels caused by climate change, according to research led by NASA Scientists.
A key factor identified by the scientists is a regular “wobble” in the moon’s orbit first identified in the 18th century – that takes 18.6 years to complete. The moon’s gravitational pull helps drive Earth’s tides.
In half of the lunar cycle, Earth’s regular daily tides are diminished, with high tides lower than usual and low tides higher than usual. In the cycle’s other half, the situation is reversed, with high tides higher and low tide lower.
The expected flooding will result from the combination of continuing sea level rise associated with climate change and the arrival of an amplification part of the lunar cycle in the mid-2030s, the researchers said.
“In the background, we have long-term sea level rise associated with global warming. It’s causing sea level to increase everywhere,” Ban Hamlington, NASA team leader and one of the study’s authors, told Reuters.
“The effect from the moon caused the tides to vary, so what we found is that this effect lines up with the underlying sea level rise, and that will cause flooding specifically in that time period from 2030 to 2040,” Hamlington said.