Climate change and its consequences are becoming increasingly visible, scaring scientists about the consequences for the environment.

Coastal cities on the southern coast of the US, including Miami, Houston and New Orleans, are at even greater risk from sea level rise than previously predicted, according to two studies, the Guardian website points out.

According to the scientists of the first study, sea levels in the coastal regions of the southern and southeastern US states have risen by 12.7 centimeters since 2010. This increase, more than double the global average, is fueling increasingly powerful hurricanes, including of Hurricane Ian, which hit Florida in September and caused more than $113 billion in damage. It is the state’s costliest natural disaster and the third costliest storm in US history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The University of Arizona study, published in the Journal of Climate and published Monday by the Washington Post, provides a disturbing new assessment of a key component of the escalating climate emergency, particularly in popular but vulnerable regions of the US where millions of people live.

Existing NASA projections show a sea level rise of up to 12 inches (30 cm) by mid-century, with longer-term projections even more ominous.

The Gulf region from Texas to Florida and the Southeast coast will see the most changes according to the US space agency.

“The entire Southeast and Gulf Coast are feeling the impact of accelerating sea level rise,” study author Jianjun Yin, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, told the Washington Post.

“It turns out that the water level associated with Hurricane Ian was the highest on record due to the combined effect of sea level rise and storm surge.”

Miami, and Miami Beach, cities often cited as ground zero for the climate emergency, are often hit by flooding during high tides. As the Guardian reports, property insurance rates across Florida, which NOAA says has experienced more than 40 percent of all U.S. hurricanes, have skyrocketed in recent years. The two costliest hurricanes in US history, Katrina in 2005 and Harvey in 2017, devastated New Orleans and Houston respectively.

The second study, published in Nature Communications, mirrors the finding of the University of Arizona analysis of accelerating sea-level rise. In their study, researchers from Tulane University in New Orleans note that the increase in the rate of sea level rise in the Gulf and the Southeast is unprecedented for at least 120 years.

The scientists report that sea-level rise is “amplified by internal climate change,” as was the case with hurricanes Katrina and Sandy (2012), which “demonstrates that any further increase in the rate of sea-level rise threatens national security of the United States and prevents timely adaptation measures.”

Human activity in the Gulf region, which the researchers refer to as “vertical land motion” (VLM), has played a role, the study continues.

“It is well known that tide gauges in the Gulf of Mexico are subject to significant nonlinear VLM, possibly related to oil, gas, or groundwater withdrawal. These nonlinear changes occur mainly along the western parts of the US Gulf Coast (Louisiana and Texas),” the study notes.