![]() ![]() “But we also see subsidence on the north end of Staten Island that I can’t figure out an explanation for, and I’ve looked into all kinds of different things - so that still remains a mystery.” “Some of that seems to correspond with construction projects going on,” Parsons said. Some areas of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens are among those that are sinking at a faster than average rate, according to the study. And there’s a lot of different causes of it, such as post glacial relaxation that happened after the last ice age, or groundwater pumping.” “Other places, we see subsidence that’s difficult to explain. “We could see some correspondence where there’s construction on very soft soils and artificial fill,” Parsons said. However, not all of the sinking is due to the buildings. Mystery of why Roman buildings have survived so long has been unraveled, scientists say (Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images) Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images ROME, ITALY - DECEMBER 27: A view of the Pantheon in the historic centre of Rome on Decemin Rome, Italy. This latest study’s novel approach is to take into account specifically the weight of New York City’s buildings and how they are contributing to the subsidence of the land beneath them. A September 2022 study found that 44 of the 48 most populous coastal cities have areas that are sinking faster than sea levels are rising. Subsidence is the technical term for the sinking or settling of Earth’s surface due to natural or artificial causes. That analysis revealed the rate at which the city is sinking: “The average is about 1 to 2 millimeters a year, with some areas of greater subsidence that are up to about 4½ millimeters a year,” Parsons said. The study team then used simulations to calculate the effects of that weight on the ground, comparing that with satellite data showing actual surface geology. The researchers calculated the mass of the 1,084,954 buildings that existed across the five boroughs of New York City at the time, reaching the conclusion that they weighed about 1.68 trillion pounds (762 billion kilograms) - equivalent to roughly 1.9 million fully loaded Boeing 747-400s. The paper, published in the journal Earth’s Future, aims to show how high-rise buildings in coastal, riverfront or lakefront areas could contribute to future flood risk and that measures should be taken to mitigate the potentially hazardous impacts. ![]() “But we’ve had a couple of major hurricane events with Sandy and Ida in New York where heavy rainfall caused inundation in the city, and some of the effects of urbanization have allowed water to come in.” ![]() “We’re a ways off from the ocean simply moving in,” said lead study author Tom Parsons, a research geophysicist at the US Geological Survey. What’s more, scientists expect more frequent and extreme rainfall events such as nor’easters and hurricanes due to the human-fueled climate crisis. This gradual process could spell trouble for a city around which the sea level has been rising more than twice as fast as the global rate - and is projected to rise between 8 inches and 30 inches by 2050. New York City is sinking under the collective weight of all of its buildings, a new study has found.
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