Sea level rise is never far from the mind of some in New Jersey.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides readers with an interactive tool to see what future rising temperatures could mean for ice melt and, by extension, rising ocean levels on the Jersey Shore and beyond.
“Increased carbon emissions increase atmospheric and ocean warming, which melts ice sheets and glaciers on land and causes thermal expansion of the ocean, leading to coastal sea level rise along most of the U.S. coast,” William Sweet, NOAA oceanographer, told NJ Advance Media. on Wednesday.
In 2022, a report from NOAA noted that it is increasingly likely that sea levels along the nation’s coasts will rise at least 2 feet by the end of this century due to human-caused climate change.
The current trajectory of emissions, a NOAA spokesman said this week, predicts that by 2100 sea levels are likely to rise 2.5 to 3.5 feet.
The agency’s interactive tool continues to be updated to showcase the latest scenarios.
An online map from NOAA illustrates what New Jersey can expect, such as in parts of the Jersey Shore that run parallel to the Atlantic Ocean — but also inland.
Pictured below is the devastation that 2 feet of flooding would bring to places like Tuckerton, Port Republic, Little Egg Harbor Township and Absecon.
New Jersey’s proposed regulations would require new structures to be built five feet higher than existing flood elevations set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA.
5 feet of sea level rise would submerge Holly Park, Cedar Beach and much of Ocean Gate, the tool shows. In Toms River, even places some distance from the nearest waterway, such as Camelot and Parkway Manor, would experience flooding.
Down on the Jersey Shore, towns like Margate, Ventnor and Brigantine will be submerged by rising water on both sides – from small nearby bays and the ocean.
Problems in the north would also be severe, with areas adjacent to the Hudson River (such as Jersey City, Hoboken, and Weehawken) facing flooding problems as well as sea level rise.
Sweet said locally, viewers can use NOAA’s 2050 sea-level rise trajectories and 2100 rise scenarios from a federal sea-level rise report two years ago “along with maps to better understand what land and infrastructure will be exposed increasing risk. episodic flooding and more permanent flooding.
Housing and flooding
Between 1911 and 2019, New Jersey’s sea level has already risen 1.5 feet along the state’s coast, according to Rutgers University experts — compared to half a foot in global average sea level.
“If we continue to release greenhouse gas emissions, we’re going to see faster sea level rise in the future,” Robert Kopp, a climate scientist and professor in Rutgers’ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said Wednesday afternoon. .
Kopp said that while reductions in these emissions will pay off by the end of the century and beyond, remarkable sea-level rise is already expected within the next two decades.
“That means we have to adapt to sea level rise,” he said, discussing the significant amount of development on the state’s coast. “When we think about things like land use. When we think about things like infrastructure. We need to plan for sea level and climate in the coming decades.”
A Rutgers analysis provided to NJ Advance Media also outlined the following for what potential future flooding could mean for renters and homeowners:
- Of the more than 3 million parcels of land in New Jersey as of February 2024, more than 307,000 were in the 100-year floodplain – in other words, those properties that have a 1 in 100 (or 1%) chance of being flooded each year.
- This 100-year scenario includes more than 224,345 residential homes at risk (out of more than 2.4 million households)
- Land in New Jersey at risk under the 100-year floodplain scenario has a total actual net assessed value of over $250 billion – about $156 billion of which is residential.
NOAA’s Sweet said New Jersey in particular also faces higher-than-average rates of sea-level rise due to factors such as the number of tropical and northern Easter storms it faces, as well as “land subsidence,” slow settling, or sudden sinking. of the earth’s surface, which is associated with the last ice age.
For more information on what sea level rise could mean for your part of New Jersey, explore the NOAA map at coast.noaa.gov/slr.