Like something out of a blockbuster disaster movie, New York City is expected to be abandoned within decades due to the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet, experts say.
A new report in Nature insists that the Big Apple is at serious risk of being submerged in water as sea levels are predicted to reach as high as six feet by the year 2100.
The ice sheet is about the size of Mexico and apparently doesn’t need much more abuse due to global warming before it breaks up and melts. Experts previously thought we had centuries to prepare but new evidence suggests NYC will be no more by the end of the century.
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts say that while there are things we can do like build defences around the coastline, there’s little hope it would work.
David Pollard, who co-wrote the paper, told The New York Times, “We are not saying this is definitely going to happen. But I think we are pointing out that there’s a danger, and it should receive a lot more attention.”
Featured cover image: The Federalist Papers