Posted on 05/17/2023 4:12:42 PM PDT by lowbridge
The city that never sinks?
New geological research warns that the weight of New York City’s skyscrapers is actually causing the Big Apple — whose more than 1 million buildings weigh nearly 1.7 trillion pounds — to sink lower into its surrounding bodies of water.
The city is plopping closer to the water at a rate of 1 to 2 millimeters a year, “with some areas subsiding much faster.”
While that may not seem significant to untrained eyes, the gradual descent makes NYC extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, according to lead researcher and geologist Tom Parsons of the United States Geological Survey.
Lower Manhattan is particularly at risk, and there is concern for both Brooklyn and Queens as well, according to the study.
“New York faces significant challenges from flood hazard; the threat of sea level rise is 3 to 4 times higher than the global average along the Atlantic coast of North America … A deeply concentrated population of 8.4 million people faces varying degrees of hazard from inundation in New York City,” he and his team wrote in the new report.
The city has already seen these harsh effects starting more than a decade ago.
“Two recent hurricanes caused casualties and heavy damage in New York City,” he wrote. “In 2012, Hurricane Sandy forced sea water into the city, whereas heavy rainfall from Hurricane Ida in 2021 overwhelmed drainage systems because of heavy runoff within the mostly paved city.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Naturally, they’ll blame it all on Trump Tower, tear it down, and then prosecute Trump for having built a heavy building.
BS. If anything the ground levels would increase.
Grow up, NYC!
Hire a few engineers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_elevations_below_sea_level
8= Amsterdam Schiphol Airport Netherlands −4 m (−13 ft) Netherlands coastal provinces (−1 to −7 m) (−3 to −23 ft)
8= Wieringermeer Netherlands −4 m (−13 ft) Netherlands coastal provinces (−1 to −7 m) (−3 to −23 ft)
8= Flevoland Netherlands −4 m (−13 ft) Netherlands coastal provinces (−1 to −7 m) (−3 to −23 ft)
8= Neuendorf-Sachsenbande Germany −4 m (−13 ft)
12 Le Contane, Jolanda di Savoia Italy −3.44 m (−11.3 ft)
13= parts of West Flanders Belgium −3 m (−10 ft)
13= North Slob, County Wexford Ireland −3 m (−10 ft)
15 The Fens United Kingdom −2.75 m (−9 ft)
16= Étang de Lavalduc France −2 m (−7 ft)
16= Amsterdam Netherlands −2 m (−7 ft) Netherlands coastal provinces (−1 to −7 m) (−3 to −23 ft)
16= Kristianstad Sweden −2 m (−7 ft)
16= Żuławy Wiślane Poland −2 m (−7 ft) Baltic delta of the Vistula River
I’ll add more later, but wanted to enter the correction now.
NO1 Manhatten is NOT sunking due to the weight of the skyscrapers (or any oof the other buildings) on its rocky mass. The ENTIRE NEW ENGLAND REGION of New York, Long Island, New Jersey, eastern PA, CT, and Mass is sinkning down because of the weight of the glaciers that covered the entire area north to Hudson Bay began melting off 12,000 - 15,000 years ago.
Remove those tons of weight on the regional bedrock, and the bedrock rebounds and rises. BUT! The southern edge of the glaciers near the ocean melted out first, tipped up first. Now (the last 8000 years or so) the glaciers formerly over top of the same bedrock continental mass have melted out. Hudon Bay has not had glacier ice for around 6000 years. So that region up north is lifting up in its natural rebound movement.
North end of a swingset bar goes up, the south end goes down - which is where New York and New Jersey are. Going down at around 1.1 mm per year. Mass, CT eastern PA as well.
So, New Jersey is going down at the same rate as Manhatten is going down.
Actual measured global average sea level rise remain near-constant since calibrated accurate measurements began in the mid-1920’s: 2.3 to 2.5 mm/year. 1 inch per decade. 10 inches per year. 1 meter in 400 years.
At the southern tip of Manhatten - and across the river in New Jersey, relative sea level rise is greater than the measured global average: 2.4 mm/year + 1.1 mm/year = 3.4 to 3.5 mm per year for New York-New Jersey. 1 meter in 300 years.
That is one heck of piece of trivia! The ingenuity of the old generations never ceases to amaze me.
As for the New York Public Library sinking, all I know is what I read in a book, many moons ago.
See tag. ;^)
Interesting; thank you.
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