New York City goes underwater every year, but glacial melting has nothing to do with it: what scientists have learned

The American city of New York is slowly sinking under water every year, but the reason for this is not glacial melting and rising ocean levels, but human activity. As scientists have found out, the city is sinking deeper and deeper under the incomprehensible weight of its iconic skyscrapers.

This is stated in a study published in the journal Earth's Future. This trend makes the city, home to about 8.5 million people, particularly vulnerable to natural disasters.

It was found that different parts of the city are sinking into the ocean at different rates. The geological process of subsidence, in which sedimentary rocks shift and settle, is occurring more rapidly in the Lower Manhattan area, which is at sea level, as well as in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

According to researchers from the US Geological Survey and the University of Rhode Island, the average subsidence is one to two millimetres per year, but the situation is worse in problem areas.

Residents also warn that even such a seemingly insignificant annual submergence of the city poses a greater threat than it may seem, as it makes New York more vulnerable to climate change-related disasters. In particular, powerful hurricanes.

"New York City faces significant flood hazards; the threat of sea level rise is 3-4 times higher than the global average along the Atlantic coast of North America," the study authors noted.

At the same time, New York is not the only coastal city in the United States that is sinking lower and lower every year. In 2021, researchers issued a similar verdict for San Francisco.

The authors of the study call New York a symbol of growing coastal cities around the world that are slowly sinking. They call for a global effort to mitigate the effects of the growing risk of flooding.

At the same time, the authors of the study do not propose any radical steps that could stop the process that is already underway, but obviously suggest thinking about how to protect people.

"On a global scale, people living in subsiding cities will face sea level rise four times faster than in stable regions," the researchers concluded.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL also told about which Ukrainian cities could be flooded as a result of the melting of the Doomsday glacier.

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