After a new research was conducted, specialists have found out that, by the end of this century, New York will experience devastating floods, like the ones provoked by Hurricane Sandy. The difference will be that they will become more frequent, from three to seventeen more common. Nine-foot floods are expected to engulf New York in a few decades.
- Terrible floods are soon to affect big portions of New York.
- The sea level is continuously rising due to climate change.
Scientists have tried to discover the cause of these damages provoked by Hurricane Sandy. When it last hit New York, the hurricane flooded the subway and triggered losses estimated at billions of dollars. Experts have lately unveiled that the flood risk has been continuously raising over the last centuries in Manhattan. They have analyzed some reconstructions of the sea levels back in 850 to 1850 AD. Due to this information, they managed to point out that the sea level was rising with almost 1.5 millimeters every year.
When the twentieth century came, experts measured a boost in the increase of the sea level, changing from 1.5 to 3 millimeters per year because of human-made climate change. The co-author of the study and also an Earth scientist from Rutgers University, Robert Kopp, has argued that the flood risk has become triple because of the global warming.
Kopp claims that disasters like Hurricane Sandy turned from being a catastrophe which occurred once every 1,200 years to one happening once every 400 years. That should concern and alert authorities to start acting upon the matter. Global warming is not an idea, but reality. As bad news as it is, it can become even worse because the flood risk is continuously changing.
The causes which contribute to all these are the melting glaciers and the subsidence of the land. What is more, the climate can also act on the dynamics of storms, making them more rough and powerful than before, being able to bring more rain.
Kopp and his team have forecasted that storms like Hurricane Sandy will be four times more frequent, concerning the uncontrolled gas emissions which harm the ozone layer and the shifting patterns of the winds.
How would you try to change this disastrous situation? Will you even try to reduce some effects of the global warming by combating carbon emissions?
Image source: wikipedia
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