Heavy skyscrapers causing New York City to sink, geologists warn
05/22/2023 / By Belle Carter
Geological research published in Earth’s Future journal earlier this month revealed that the weight of skyscrapers in New York City (NYC) is causing the Big Apple to sink lower into its surrounding bodies of water at a rate of one to two millimeters a year, with some areas subsiding much faster.
The more than one million buildings in NYC, which include the iconic Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, were found to weigh nearly 1.7 trillion pounds, which is roughly the equivalent of 140 million elephants.
According to lead researcher and geologist Tom Parsons of the United States Geological Survey, the gradual descent makes NYC extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, with lower Manhattan particularly found to be at the highest risk. Brooklyn and Queens are also areas of concern.
“New York faces significant challenges from flood hazard; the threat of sea level rise is three to four 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,” Parsons and his team wrote in the report.
The research pointed out that NYC has already seen these harsh effects starting more than a decade ago.
https://www.climate.news/2023-05-22-heavy-skyscrapers-causing-nyc-to-sink.html