Six coastal towns and cities on Florida’s Gulf Coast — which is especially vulnerable to storm-driven flooding — broke storm surge records during Hurricane Helene, according to data analyzed by The Post.
  • treadful@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    So I’m looking at this chart in the article on sea level rise by location:

    I feel like I’m lacking some key knowledge here. How can the sea level rise be different in different parts of the coast? Shouldn’t the average sea level rise be roughly equal worldwide?

    Even if there’s like a new strong current constantly pushing water into Galveston I’d expect it to average out over time. What am I missing?

    • bamboo@lemm.ee
      8·
      3 months ago

      The earth is neither a perfect sphere nor is gravity uniform over the earth’s surface. The ground is also moving around, naturally due to plate tectonics but also due to human factors like oil and gas extraction as well as the depleting of fossil water. There might be more factors at play, but these alone are probably enough variation to explain this difference.