Sea levels to rise 10-12 inches by 2050, US to be worst-affected: NASA, NOAA Report

Sea levels along US coastlines will rise between 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) on average above the current levels by 2050, according to a new report involving several top US agencies including NASA and NOAA.

Coastal flooding will increase significantly over the next 30 years because of sea level rise, according to the report by an inter-agency sea level rise task force that includes NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other federal agencies.

Titled Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States, the Feb. 15 report concludes that sea level along U.S. coastlines will rise between 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 centimeters) on average above today's levels by 2050.

The rise in ocean height in the next 30 years could equal the total rise seen over the past 100 years, said the report released by NASA.

NASA's team, led by Ben Hamlington, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, has developed an online mapping tool to visualize the report's state-of-the-art sea level rise projections on a localized level across the U.S. "The hope is that the online tool will help make the information as widely accessible as possible," Hamlington said.

The task force developed their near-term sea level rise projections by drawing on an improved understanding of how the processes that contribute to rising seas, such as melting glaciers and ice sheets as well as complex interactions between ocean, land, and ice, will affect ocean height.

"This report supports previous studies and confirms what we have long known: Sea levels are continuing to rise at an alarming rate, endangering communities around the world," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

Building on a Research Legacy

The Global and Regional Sea Level Rise report incorporates sea level projections from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment, released by the UN in August 2021. The IPCC report provides global evaluations of Earth's climate and use analyses based on computer simulations, among other data.

A separate forthcoming report known as the Fifth National Climate Assessment, produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is the latest in a series summarizing the impacts of climate change on the U.S., and it will in turn use the results from the Global and Regional Sea Level Rise report in its analysis. The Climate Assessment is slated to publish the next report next year in 2023.

NASA sea level researchers have been studying for decades how Earth's changing climate will affect the ocean. Their work includes research forecasting how much coastal flooding U.S. communities will experience in 10 years, helping to visualize IPCC data on global sea level rise using an online visualization tool, and launching satellites that contribute data to a decades-long record of global sea surface height.