Sea Levels Rise Along Pacific Coast

Climatic shifts and periodic weather patterns are bringing sea levels up along the Pacific coast, which is causing many scientists concern about how coastal regions will be able to react.

1 minute read

May 13, 2011, 6:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


"[A]fter three decades of this good fortune, sea levels are suddenly forecast to start rising along the eastern Pacific Ocean. They might not only catch up with global averages but could even surpass them, scientists say.

That's because changing ocean winds are poised to reverse a tilt in the Pacific Ocean that has inundated parts of Asia and protected America's western states from rising seas since the late 1970s, researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego reported last week.

It's a change in the Pacific Decadel Oscillation, El Niño's lesser-understood and longer-lasting doppelganger."

Officials in California are expecting sea levels to rise 14 inches by 2050.

Monday, May 9, 2011 in The New York Times

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