The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will be building new sea level parameters that will aid coastal communities in constructing robust homes and other buildings, officials announced Friday.
Officials say that the new parameters will compel contractors in New York City, near Long Island and on the coastlines of the Hudson River to get ready for sea levels that may rise between 15 to 75 inches by the year 2100.
Additionally, many areas that were hit by Hurricane Sandy, in particular the shores of Staten Island and the Rockaway Peninsula, could possibly be underwater, according to Climate Central.
The sea level rise forecasts were made as part of the Community Risk and Resiliency Act of 2014 of the state of New York, which will need the state to establish sea levels for the end of the century.
The forecast used by the state comes from a study that was carried out by the Cornell and Columbia universities and Hunter College and shows how quick the ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic are melting.
The study shows that sea levels could increase between 15 and 72 inches at Montauk Point on the eastern edge of Long Island, and between 15 and 75 inches in New York City. Meanwhile, the level of the Hudson River near Albany, more than 150 miles inland from New York Harbor, could possibly increase by up to 71 inches.
"The New York State sea level rise projections, developed using state-of-the-science methods, will provide the best available climate risk information for decision makers throughout the state," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, study co-author and senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research.
