Scientists say that New York City is now more prone to storm- driven flooding that it is 1,000 or even 100 years ago due to climate change, rising sea level and changes in storm nature.
According to washingtonpost.com, National Academy of Sciences has released a report regarding the changing weather patterns and its effect to the city. Researchers said "We see more intense storms with a greater ability to produce high storm surges at The Battery in NYC during the anthropogenic (1970 to present) era than during the pre-anthropogenic era."
The paper is the result of collaborative work of Andra Reed of Penn State University, Hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of MIT, Reed's colleague Michael Mann and Ning Lin of Princeton.
The report says that Atlantic Ocean has better records of hurricane occurrence but the records only showed data since 1851 to present only. Researchers consider it "too short" to identify if there will be a real change in New York's storm risk.
Researchers have used a different method in forecasting it instead. They used a "simulated downscaled Atlantic coast hurricanes" from 850 to 1800 and compared the storm surge data they had replicate with the storm surge recorded that were caused by hurricanes. However, the sea level of New York coast is not included in the data measured by their simulated program and this resulted to their study of the records of sea levels for past 1,000 years.
According to cbsnews.com, the research had given few insights that can help in understanding the storm pattern ultimately, giving opportunity for the people to be prepared for it. Bejamin Horton of Rutgers said "A storm that occurred once in seven generations is now occurring twice in a generation. What we do know is that as sea level rise accelerates into the future, we are going to have more frequent flooding."
Adam Sobel, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University, also said that the study has not revealed much about what the researchers are trying to learn. He said that "This is just one more good study adding certainty to what we know already, which is that coastal cities around the world - including New York, but we're not the only one, nor the worst - are in trouble. This makes the direction of change certain: We are at increasing risk for Sandy-like disasters here in New York City and in many other places as well."
