The Drowning South: Where Seas Are Rising At Alarming Speed -- Washington Post

Between 1993 and 2022 mean sea level has risen across most of the world ocean (blue colors). In some ocean basins, sea level has risen 6-8 inches (15-20 centimeters). Rates of local sea level (dots) on the coast can be larger than the global average due to geological processes like ground settling or smaller than the global average due to processes like the centuries-long rebound of land masses from the loss of ice-age glaciers. Map by NOAA Climate.gov based on data provided by Philip Thompson, University of Hawaii.

Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis, Kevin Crowe and John Muyskens -- Washington Post

April 29, 2024

One of the most rapid sea level surges on Earth is besieging the American South, forcing a reckoning for coastal communities across eight U.S. states, a Washington Post analysis found.

At more than a dozen tide gauges spanning from Texas to North Carolina, sea levels are at least six inches higher than they were in 2010 — a change similar to what occurred over the previous five decades.

Scientists are documenting a barrage of impacts — ones, they say, that will confront an even larger swath of U.S. coastal communities in the coming decades — even as they try to decipher the precise causes of this recent surge.