Model suggests impact of global warming on AMOC has led to increased flooding along US Northeast Coast
A team of geophysicists and atmospheric scientists at Princeton's NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science has found evidence that a warming planet over the past 15 to 20 years has impacted the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and led to an increase in the number of flooding events along parts of the U.S. Northeast Coast (USNEC).
In their study published in the journal Science Advances, the group created a model to make estimates regarding the number of flooding events along the USNEC that would have occurred if not for global warming over the past decades and how it differed from reality.
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Doing so allowed them to make estimates regarding the number of flooding events along the USNEC that should have occurred over the years 2005 to 2022 had conditions remained as they were prior to changes to the AMOC. They then compared their estimates with the number of flooding events that actually occurred along the USNEC, and found differences ranging from 20% to 50%.
The researchers suggest that global warming has a major impact on the AMOC that will likely continue. The findings may enable them to predict flooding up to three years in advance. They further note that their model did not include changes in the future due to continued ice melt, which likely means the region could see even more flooding events than the model predicted.
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