A new study shows the number of people who could be displaced by sea level rise this century in the United States due to global warming is much higher than previously thought, with more than 13 million people at risk, nearly half of them in Florida. Those numbers are about three times higher than previous estimates for displacement. Researcher Deepak Mishra elaborated on the findings.

Deepak Mishra: “I think there’s a certain layered approach that can be—that can stem from this research, for example, if you tell people that, OK, 85 years down the road, 13 million people will be affected if we take the most extreme projection, which is 1.8-meter sea level rise by 2100. But I think we need to take this study forward by doing another study of what is the impact of sea level rise right now in terms of frequent coastal flooding.”

The study comes amid devastating flooding in Louisiana that have damaged thousands of homes and caused President Obama to declare a “major disaster.”