New York City, with a population of nearly 9 million, is fast approaching the danger zone for climate change.
Some would say it has already arrived.
The OECD ranked New York City among the 10 cities most vulnerable to rising sea levels with 2.9 million people and $2.1 trillion in assets exposed to storm surges by 2070 if sea levels keep rising.
And a new report from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences finds that by as early as the end of this decade, the city will be a far warmer, stormier, less-pleasant place to live than it is now.
Hurricane Sandy, just one of the symptoms of a warming planet, was our first dire warning.
Hurricane Sandy struck without mercy. Tempestuous winds downed trees and electric lines, smashing cars and homes. Walls of water overwhelmed barriers, wiped away homes, and crippled subway lines. Within hours, thousands of New York City homes lost power. In the ensuing chaos, the city lost $25 billion in estimated business activity.
Source: TIME
As bad as Sandy was, she was only a hint of the destruction to come. While our grandparents most likely lived through only one storm of Sandy’s scale, our grandchildren can expect to see at least 20.
Source: "Increasing Storm Tides In New York Harbor, 1844-2013," Geophysical Research Letters, May 2014
While climate change is best known for lifting sea levels and raising temperatures, it will also make storms far more intense. As the Earth heats up, more water vapor — the fuel for storms — enters the atmosphere.
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