New York City is sinking—and because the ocean is rising at a similar rate, the Earth's changing climate could accelerate the timeline.
Ed Jones—AFP / Getty Images — If rising oceans aren’t worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself.
That natural process happens everywhere as ground is compressed, but the study published this month in the journalsought to estimate how the massive weight of the city itself is hurrying things along. The rate of compression varies throughout the city. Midtown Manhattan’s skyscrapers are largely built on rock, which compresses very little, while some parts of Brooklyn, Queens and downtown Manhattan are on looser soil and sinking faster, the study revealed.
It will take hundreds of years — precisely when is unclear — before New York becomes America’s version of Venice, which is famously sinking into the Adriatic Sea.“There’s a lot of weight there, a lot of people there,” Parsons said, referring specifically to Manhattan. “The average elevation in the southern part of the island is only 1 or 2 meters above sea level — it is very close to the waterline, and so it is a deep concern.
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