The moon is set to pull the tides harder and the timing couldn’t be worse for flooding.
The moon pulls the oceans up and down as it revolves around the earth but it will soon wobble in a way that unleashes significantly more amplified tidal swings on Earth.
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High tide flooding – also called nuisance floods or sunny day floods – which are already an increasing problem are expected to become magnified starting in the mid 2030s.
A NASA’s Sea Level Change Team alerted the public to the 18.6-year lunar cycle’s wobble that affects the Moon’s gravitational pull on Earth’s tides. The new phase in the decade ahead will combine with rising sea levels resulting from the planet’s warming.
The new study published this month in Nature Climate Change, shows that high tides will exceed known flooding thresholds around the country more often.
What’s more, the floods will sometimes occur in clusters lasting a month or longer, depending on the positions of the Moon, Earth, and the Sun.
When the Moon and Earth line up in specific ways with each other and the Sun, the resulting gravitational pull and the ocean’s corresponding response may leave city dwellers coping with floods every day or two.