Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

September 20, 2016

Are rates of sea level rise increasing faster along the West or the East Coast of the United States?

  1. West
  2. East
  3. It's the same for both

To see the answer, scroll down below the image.

Image: Tidal Marshland in the Plum Island Estuary, Massachusetts
Tidal Marshland in the Plum Island Estuary, Massachusetts. Photograph Credit: Matthew Kirwan, USGS

The correct answer is the East Coast. Rates of sea level rise are increasing three to four times faster along portions of the U.S. Atlantic Coast than globally. Since about 1990, sea-level rise in the 600-mile stretch of coastal zone from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to north of Boston, Mass., has increased from 2 to 3.7 millimeters per year; the global increase over the same period was from 0.6 to 1.0 millimeter per year.  

Click here to learn more.

"Hazard a Guess?" is an ongoing series, so check out past questions and come back soon for more. Don't forget to share these with friends and family to help raise awareness of natural hazards.

 

Get Our News

These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.