Severe coastal flooding could threaten Wildwood, Ocean City, and A.C. by 2050, report says

Nearly 324,000 New Jersey residents occupying 232,000 homes will confront the looming threat of severe flooding driven by rising sea levels by 2050, according to a recent Climate Central report.

Communities located away from the immediate Atlantic coastline are still vulnerable to flooding caused by storm surges in tidal rivers, as highlighted in the analysis.

The study used 2050 as a benchmark for projecting a 100-year flood, defined as having a 1% probability of occurring in any given year.

Communities at risk of a potentially catastrophic flood include:

Camden, Philly, and even Burlington City share coasts along the tidal Delaware River, which is subject to storm surge.

By 2050, floods are projected to occur 10 times more often than they do today as rising seas shove tides and storm surges higher and further inland.

For its projections, the nonprofit Princeton-based Climate Central, run by scientists, examined sea-level rise projections by NOAA, U.S. Census data for population accounts, land elevation records, and a Microsoft data set for buildings.

“A lot of you know that New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are already living in areas that see significant coastal flood risk,” said Kelly Van Baalen, a project manager at Climate Central who wrote the report. “But as sea levels are projected to rise about a foot in the next 25 to 30 years, we’re going to see that those coastal floods get deeper, more damaging, as they push further inland and affect more people. This is going to be a serious challenge.”

Especially, she noted for seniors. About 1 in 5 people who live in flood zones along U.S. coasts are 65 and older.

The scientists used modeling to project how many people and homes would be at risk from a 100-year coastal flood in the year 2050.

That modeling assumed, however, that international governments’ pledges to reduce carbon pollution are met through a reduction in greenhouse gases. Those pledges were made before President Donald Trump took office this year.

As a result, Van Baalen called those commitments “a little bit of a moving target right now.”

“I don’t think they include the idea of the U.S. leaving all of its commitments behind,” Van Baalen said.

She hopes the data can help open some eyes.

“We do have big national numbers, but we tried to break it down to the state, county, and municipal level so hopefully people see there’s real impact that will affect their day-to-day life,” Van Baalen said. “It’s not some nebulous impact to polar bears or people living in the future, but flooding in my own town.”

Governments need to adapt to those flood risks, she said.

The data are searchable online through Climate Central’s Coastal Risk Finder mapping tool.

Overall, Climate Central’s report said, about 2.5 million Americans live in 1.4 million homes in areas at risk. Florida, New York, and New Jersey have the highest numbers of people and homes in areas at risk.

That risk is getting worse, the researchers noted, as coastal floods occur three times more often now than 30 years ago. The frequency and intensity of flooding are projected to increase as a result of climate change, they said.

Climate Central’s report comes as the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) also recently released its own data showing that 61% of the state’s coastal wetlands may be at risk of being lost because of accelerating sea-level rise.

New Jersey’s roughly 200,000 acres of wetlands provide important protection for communities against storm surges.

Under a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, New Jersey is projected to experience two to five feet of sea-level rise by 2100, according to the DEP.

“The science clearly demonstrates that our coastal wetlands are facing increased stress due to the accelerating pace of sea-level rise,” said Nick Angarone, New Jersey’s chief resilience officer.

New Jersey’s relative sea levels are rising at a rate about twice the global average due to the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions and subsidence, which refers to the sinking of land through geological or human causes, such as the withdrawal of water from underground aquifers.

Though Pennsylvania might not be thought of as a coastal state, the Delaware River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean, is tidal through to Trenton. So the city is impacted by tidal surges during big storms such as nor’easters.

However, Van Baalen notes, that is not the only threat, citing other flood threats from non-coastal storms.

“If the flooding comes from rainfall in upstate New York that causes the Delaware to swell, then we wouldn’t be capturing that in this report,” she said.