According to a new study, scientists reported the unfortunate news that the risk of storm-driven or hurricane flooding in New York City is much higher than it was a century ago, thanks to both a rise in sea level and changes in the nature of storms.
It's pretty simple really. Higher sea levels mean higher storm surges, which means storms can travel further inland.
Sadly, storms have also become bigger and more powerful, which researches found by subtracting the role of changing sea levels and examining the surges generated by different storms.
"The storm surge heights in the tails of the anthropogenic distributions are significantly greater than the storm surge heights in the tails of the pre-anthropogenic storm surge distributions," the study reported.
CBS reported these changes are so severe that major storms that prior to industrialization would only have occurred every 500 years or so, are now likely to occur as often as every 25 years.
The study, conducted by Penn State, Rutgers, Princeton, MIT, and Tufts found that flood heights have risen almost four feet since the year 850.
"What we do know is that as seal level rise accelerates into the future, we are going to have more frequent flooding," said Benjamin Horton from Rutgers.
As a result, the study calls for "advanced risk management strategies."
"Coastal cities around the world - including New York, but we're not the only one, nor the worst - are in trouble," said Adam Sobel, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University.
Of course, these concerns are especially urgent as we track the movement of Hurricane Joaquin, which escalated to hurricane strength on Wednesday morning. It's still unclear whether Hurricane Joaquin will land in NYC.
Concerns about more intense flooding are also especially terrifying considering this map of which parts of the city would be decimated by rising sea levels.
"Climate change is already costing us dearly, but it'll be a whole lot worse if we do nothing about it," said Michael Mann, a researcher from Penn State.
Luckily, we're already taking some of the advanced risk management strategies for which the article called. In August, Mayor de Blasio gave the go-ahead for the city to fund a $100 million dollar project to shield lower Manhattan from major storms.
The city will use methods like levees, flood walls, and more parkland to soak up storm water.
Now, we just need these measures implemented in Lower Manhattan, and fast. We need to spring into action so we never experience the total devastation of Sandy again. Like, ever.
Check out Hurricane Joaquin Might Make Its Way to NYC.
[via Washington Post]