Global warming is threatening to flood parts of New York City this century.
Many of the area’s rail, subway and road tunnel entrances are less than 3 metres
above sea level. This leaves them vulnerable to flooding during a “hundred-year”
storm. But sea levels will rise anywhere from 24 to 108 centimetres by 2080,
warns Vivien Gornitz of Columbia University, which means that less severe, more
frequent storms will put them at risk (Global and Planetary Change vol
32, p 61). If sea levels had been around half a metre higher during a storm in
December 1992, the tunnels…
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