BEIJING, Oct. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- A new computer model using data collected from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Hurricane Center reveals a substantial rise in sea levels during the next century caused by global warming, combined with a hurricane, and New Yorkers could kiss Coney Island goodbye.
Researchers also said the Rockaways, much of southern Brooklyn and Queens, portions of Long Island City, Astoria, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, lower Manhattan and eastern Staten Island, from Great Kills Harbor north to the Verrazano Bridge could be submerged.
Sea level around the city could climb 15 to 19 inches by 2050 and by more than three feet by 2080, according to the model.
"With sea levels at these higher levels, flooding by major storms would inundate many low-lying neighborhoods and shut down the entire metropolitan transportation system with much greater frequency," said study team member Vivien Gornitz of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University in New York.
Even an increase of 1.5 inches in normal sea level could contribute to flooding many parts of the city if a Category 3 hurricane were to strike, said Gornitz and fellow researcher Rosemary Rosenzweig. Hurricanes are ranked from 1 to 5, with 5 being the strongest and most destructive.
Hurricanes have not hit New York City often. The strongest was a Category 4 hurricane at its peak in the Caribbean, which made landfall at Jamaica Bay on Sept. 3, 1821 with a 13-foot storm surge that flooded much of lower Manhattan.
And the "Great Hurricane of 1938," a Category 3, blasted through central Long Island and ripped into southern New England on Sept. 21, 1938. The storm, which killed at least 600 people, pushed a wall of water up to 35 feet high in front of it, sweeping away protective barrier dunes and buildings.
Officials have long warned that a similar storm striking Manhattan would be devastating today. Of particular concern: massive subway flooding.
Sea levels around the world have been rising steadily, by fractions of an inch, during most of the 20th century, but the rate of increase has nearly doubled, to 0.12 inches per year, within the last decade. Scientists believe warming of the world's oceans and melting glaciers caused by global warming are to blame.
The findings will be presented this week at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Philadelphia.
(Agencies)
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