The newly recognized storm-tide increase means that New York is at risk of more frequent and extensive flooding than was expected due to sea-level rise alone, said Stefan Talke, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Portland State University in Portland, Ore. He is lead author of the new study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters…The research also confirms that the New York harbor storm tide produced by Hurricane Sandy was the largest since at least 1821.

Tide gauge data analyzed in the study show that a major, “10-year” storm hitting New York City today causes bigger storm tides and potentially more damage than the identical storm would have in the mid-1800s. Specifically, Talke explained, there’s a 10 percent chance today that, in any given year, a storm tide in New York harbor will reach a maximum height of nearly two meters…the so-called “10-year storm.” In the mid-19th century, however, that maximum height was about 1.7 meters…or nearly a foot lower than it is today, according to tide gauge data going back to 1844, he noted.

“What we are finding is that the 10-year storm tide of your great-, great-grandparents is not the same as the 10-year storm tide of today,” Talke said…

The storm tide is the amount that water levels rise during a storm. It includes both the storm surge — the abnormal rise in water generated by the storm above the sea level — and the predicted astronomical tide. The rise in storm tide outlined in the recent study is in addition to the .44 meter…rise in local sea level that has occurred since the mid-19th century in New York harbor.

Combining the newly calculated rise in storm tide with the rise in sea level that has taken place since the mid-1800s, the researchers found that today, waters can be expected to overtop the lower Manhattan seawall — 1.75 meters high — once every four to five years. In the 19th century, when both sea levels and storm tides were lower, water was expected to overtop the Manhattan seawall only once every 100 to 400 years, according to the paper.

New York just needs to do what politicians in Virginia have done. Make it illegal to use words describing increases in the ocean’s elevation and the likelihood of seawalls being overtopped. Then your problem goes away, right?

It’s the new Republican solution to climate change.