Klaus Jacob has been studying climate change for more than half a century and has been a member of the New York Climate Change Committee for more than a decade. During this time, he told Yahoo News that he had seen “worsening disasters” and urged policymakers to prepare for the much more serious events to come.
Currently a special researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at the Earth Institute and an associate professor at Columbia University Jacob warns that parts of many coastal cities like New York will be regularly flooded by the end of this century.
forehead The New York Plan Jacob said building barriers to control the 30-inch sea level rise by 2050 is inadequate because it won’t be enough for what will happen later.
“So we will still have storms that will overcome these obstacles, if not in the next few decades, then certainly towards the end of the century when sea level rise will be 5, 6 feet,” Jacob told the “Climate Crisis Podcast.” “” Or, as a last resort, as the New York Climate Change Committee said, is there a scenario of rapid melting of the Arctic ice [and] Antarctica. This can cause the sea level to rise by 8 to 9 meters. Well, it’s more than a storm [Superstorm] Sandy, and that’s distinct. And then you have storms at the top. So these protective measures we see around lower Manhattan have a limited lifespan in which they can protect us. And I’m afraid if we built these things, people would say, ‘Oh, we’re saved now.’ No, we are not resolved. “
Instead of just holding back the water, cities may need to withdraw from some low-lying areas or completely rethink them. “You don’t move your skyscrapers, you just cancel the basement of the skyscraper [and] on the first floor or maybe on the second floor, ”Jacob said. “And there will be water down Wall Street. And geese and ducks swim around Wall Street, and we walk the high line to our office. Anything is possible. ”
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