CHARLOTTE, N.C. – In North Carolina, the worries about climate change often focus on more frequent storms with heavier rainfall, but a new federal report points to an equally potent danger – the seeping effect of sea level rise.
The report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) as part of a multi-agency project shows that sea levels along U.S. coastlines will rise, on average, by as much as a foot over the next 30 years – equal to the rise measured over the last century.
Rick Luettich, a UNC marine science professor who heads the Center for Natural Hazards Resilience, said the projection for 2050 “isn’t radically different than it was 10 years ago,” but “there is a lot of clarity to these numbers now.”
