Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun

Science

Remember for the past 15 or so years whenever someone would bring up climate change and some jackass would talk about how it wasn’t real, or that it was no big deal? They were wrong.

Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes.

Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding — often called “sunny-day flooding” — along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too.

These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water.

The Story Behind Discovering Gravitational Waves

Nicola Twilley, writing for The New Yorker, with the behind the scenes look at the scientists that discovered gravitational waves exist:

The fact that gravitational waves were detected so early prompted confusion and disbelief. “I had told everyone that we wouldn’t see anything until 2017 or 2018,” Reitze said. Janna Levin, a professor of astrophysics at Barnard College and Columbia University, who is not a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, was equally surprised. “When the rumors started, I was like, Come on!” she said. “They only just got it locked!” The signal, moreover, was almost too perfect. “Most of us thought that, when we ever saw such a thing, it would be something that you would need many, many computers and calculations to drag out of the noise,” Weiss said. Many of his colleagues assumed that the signal was some kind of test.