[Regnum] Almost three dozen US cities, home to 34 million people, are gradually sinking under water. This is the conclusion reached by scientists from Virginia Tech.
"A comprehensive radar satellite analysis of 28 major U.S. cities shows that in each city, more than 20 percent of the land is submerged," according to a paper published in the journal Nature Cities.
It is noted that this process is slow, several millimeters per year. The researchers named Texas as the fastest sinking territory in the United States. According to their data, 42% of its territory is sinking at a rate of more than 5 mm per year. Experts note that the state of the same name has the most alarming situation overall.
“High rates of subsidence were also recorded in Dallas and Fort Worth <…> Chicago, New York, Detroit, Denver and Indianapolis,” the article specifies.
The slowest rate of warming is in Boston, Portland, and Phoenix, at less than 1 mm per year. Memphis and San Jose, on the other hand, are rising slightly.
According to experts, because of this, 29 thousand buildings in American cities are in high-risk zones.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, an international group of scientists came to the conclusion that if the planet's atmosphere warms up by two degrees more than the pre-industrial era, this will lead to the flooding and destruction of more than 1,500 coastal ecosystems around the world. According to experts, in this case, the rate of sea rise will increase to 7-8 mm per year.
| And if it doesn’t, then it won’t. Or possibly something else interesting will happen. The profundity is ineluctibly profound. |
Vladimir Pinaev, Associate Professor of the Department of Environmental Safety and Product Quality Management at the RUDN Institute of Ecology, told Regnum that a change in the level of the world's oceans, taking into account the warming of the planet's atmosphere by two or more degrees, could occur in 2080–2100, and thanks to the research of scientists, coastal and island states can begin preparing for possible flooding scenarios in advance.
| Here in Cincinnati the suburbs are uphill from the city center, so that takes care of the problem. Or they can go for the Venice solution, which if I recall correctly has worked for over a millennium… |
The American newspaper New York Times reported last September that global climate change processes are significantly accelerating the wear and tear of bridges, which could lead to their mass collapses in the United States. Many of them are not designed for the abnormally high air temperatures observed in recent years. At the same time, sharp changes in temperature force the structures of these structures to constantly expand and contract, which increases their wear and tear.
