New York is sinking – study

The weight of New York City’s skyscrapers is slowly pushing the city into the sea, according to a recently published study. The city’s five boroughs are home to more than 1.08 million individual buildings, which weigh 1.68 trillion pounds, or 762 million metric tons. This mass is causing the city to subside by between one and two millimeters per year, with some buildings subsiding twice as fast as the former. The eastern seaboard of the US is subsiding much faster as glacial deposits put down during the last ice age continue to retract. Combined with a 220mm rise in sea levels recorded around the city since 1950, some of Lower Manhattan, which sits between 1,000mm and 2,000mm above sea level, could be underwater by the end of this century. City authorities must plan for this, as repeated exposure to seawater can corrode steel and destabilize buildings, and flooding also kills people.