View of the American city of New York.
New York (USA) – The American city of New York is sinking at a rate of one to two millimeters per year, the weight of the glass skyscrapers in the center is to blame, among other things. Some parts of the city are sinking at twice the rate. This trend is exacerbating the effects of sea level rise and increasing the threat of flooding to New Yorkers. This is according to a study published in the specialist journal Earth's Future, which The Guardian wrote about today.
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The level of the world's oceans is rising due to global warming, including the melting of glaciers. Since 1950, water levels along New York's shores have risen about 22 centimeters, researchers said. The city's subsidence exacerbates the risks posed by rising ocean levels. Major flooding caused by storms could be up to four times more common by the end of the century than now, due to a combination of rising sea levels and hurricanes becoming more intense due to climate change, according to a study by The Guardian.
Scientists have calculated that the city's structures, which include the famous Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, weigh a total of 7.64 trillion kilograms. The Guardian compares this weight to the weight of 140 million elephants, with one elephant weighing roughly five tons. For the calculation, the scientists used the floor plans of the houses, the weight of the materials from which they are built, and also took into account the use of the buildings and therefore the number of people in them. subsoil. While many of the largest buildings are located on solid bedrock such as shale, some stand on a mixture of sands and clays. This contributes to the subsidence that occurs naturally along much of the US East Coast as bedrock responds to the retreat of huge glaciers after the end of the last ice age, The Guardian explains. to worry about, but there is this process going on here that increases the risk of inundation during floods,” said US Geological Survey geophysicist Tom Parsons, who led the new research. “The softer the soil, the greater the pressure of the buildings. It was not a mistake to build such large buildings in New York, but we have to remember that every time you build something there, you compress the soil a little more,” added Parsons.
