New York Alert, sinking due to rising sea levels and the weight of skyscrapers

New York City is threatened by more than just rising sea levelsdue to climate change, But also because of the enormous weight of skyscrapers Which destroys the city built on three islands. That’s the warning raised in new research published in the journal Earth’s Future, which records how one million buildings in New York, which have a collective weight of 1.7 trillion pounds, the equivalent of 140 million elephants, are sinking the city in at a rate of 1-2 millimeters per year which doubles. in some areas.

the The water level around the city has risen by 9 cm from 1950 to today And by the end of the century, severe floods are expected to be four times more than they are now, due to the combination of this increase in flood waters and an increase in the strength of hurricanes, also caused by climate change.

“A large population of 8.4 million people faces varying levels of flood risk in New York,” reads the research, which recalls how two recent hurricanes, Sandy in 2012 and Ida in 2021, killed many people and caused significant damage.

Then search points as with New York Many other coastal cities around the world will share this risk With the worsening climate crisis. The research continues: “The combination of man-made tectonic subsidence, sea level rise and increased hurricane intensity is causing problems in coastal and riparian regions to accelerate.”

Regarding, however, sinking due to the weight of skyscrapers, geologists have explained that New York’s subsoil is made of various materials, from solid layers of shale to a mixture of sand and clay. “The softer the ground, the greater the stress created by the buildings,” explains Tom Parson, a USGS geophysicist who led the research, stressing that “it wasn’t a mistake to build these huge buildings in New York but you have to keep in mind that when You build something, it pushes the ground down a little bit more.”

“There is no reason to panic immediately – but it is an ongoing process that increases the risk of flooding,” he concluded.