Parts of U.S. Coastal Cities Could Be ‘Unusable’ By 2045

Parts of several U.S. cities could become “unusable” by 2045 due to flooding during high tides, according to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“UCS analyzed the states’ flooding risk under mid-range sea level rise predictions taken from the White House’s National Climate Assessment—an estimate of five inches of sea level rise by 2030, and 11 inches by 2045,” Valentine reports. “It found that tidal flooding could triple in some cities in 15 years and occur 10 times as often in most cities in the next 30 years.”

In some Mid-Atlantic cities, in particular, “flooding could occur multiple times per week,” she writes. By 2045, one-third of the cities and towns in the study “could start experiencing tidal flooding more than 180 days each year, and nine cities would see flooding 240 times each year.”