Global Warming, Hurricanes Threaten New York City

The New York Daily News yesterday reports that New York will likely becoome “hotter, rainier and more likely to flood in the coming decades—with sea levels possibly rising more than four feet.” This is according to a panel of scientists who have convinced Mayor Michael Bloomberg that “the seas are going to rise.”

The mayor was not short on Doomsday quotes as he presented the report on Tuesday and urged New Yorkers to take it seriously. According to the News, “academic experts and insurance executives on the panel concluded that average temperatures could rise up to 7.5 degrees by 2080, rainfall could increase by 10% and sea levels will rise two feet…some studies predict the polar ice caps will melt much more quickly, which could raise New York’s sea level by 55 inches by the 2080s – more than 4-1/2 feet.”

And if that weren’t enough, “weather experts say New York is due for a hurricane…the city’s Office of Emergency Management has drawn up evacuation plans that assume huge swaths of lower Manhattan and low-lying areas of the outer boroughs will be underwater during a moderate hurricane.”