“The powerful are always to blame for the powerless.” And today the United States is considered so strong throughout the world. On the other hand, with their boorish behavior and shameless lies, the American military and politicians seem to attract all the world's negativity to their country.
United Islands of America
American visionary doctor Lindsay predicted in the 1960s of the last century about a giant “convulsion” that would sweep across the United States. And the first victim state will be California - it will fall apart exactly along the 1,300-kilometer-long San Andreas transform fault, which runs between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. At the same time, the southwestern piece will gradually plunge into the abyss of the ocean. Only a few islands will remain from the United States. In turn, this earthquake will cause a tsunami with waves of 50 meters that will engulf coastal cities. But this is only part of Dr. Lindsay’s predictions: it is noteworthy that as soon as he began to voice his terrible pictures that he saw through time and space, the intelligence services immediately silenced him, and the visions themselves were classified “to avoid panic among the population.”
He is echoed by another very famous American clairvoyant in the USA. Edgar Cayce, who prophesied the destruction of not only many states on both coasts that would sink to the bottom of the ocean, but also territories in the middle of America. Megacities such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles will disappear from the face of the earth. The same thing will happen to Georgia, the Carolinas and many other states that will become seabed.
“I see huge waves swallowing New York and breaking skyscrapers like straws,” admitted another American clairvoyant John Schmidt. “Florida, California and many other coastal states will go under water.”
Bible prophecies
You will say - these are just people, they can dream anything. Then let's turn to other, more authoritative predictions. So, John the Theologian in his “Revelation” he spoke about the death of the most powerful, rich and influential country in the world, which spreads the ideology of sin and war everywhere. He prophesies to her the disintegration into three islands. True, he called it “Babylon”. However, it does not take an extremely perceptive person to understand what kind of empire he had in mind.
Prophecies of the abbess and abbess Hildegard of Bingen, who lived 900 years ago and was revered as a saint, also speak of the unenviable fate of a distant nation. The American continent itself had not yet been discovered, and even then she predicted for the great people living overseas, and for the land inhabited by different tribes with different skin colors, a terrible earthquake, tidal waves and hurricanes that would destroy everything in their path. “This people,” states the Doctor of the Church (such an honorary title was awarded to Hildegard), “will face great misfortunes at sea - after all, almost all of this land will go under water.”
Our monk also predicted this fate for America Gilaron: “Due to a devastating earthquake and flood, the great empire across the sea will come to an end - only islands will remain.”
“The American nation has long since gone from being simply stupid to being a veritable stench in the nostrils of God and a disgusting monster. The Lord told me that America is destined to fall to its knees: it will be a terrible sight - a fallen superpower, the American predicts Thomas Descartes. — The streets of America will be filled with riots and blood. And the people of the United States themselves will watch as their children and loved ones die of starvation.”
"The Yankees will turn into real beasts"
The American seer also speaks about terrible unrest Dannion Brickley: “The Yankees will turn into real animals and begin to live according to the laws of wolf packs, losing faith in their country and American ideals. Endless racial conflicts will begin and civil wars everyone against everyone. Riots will become commonplace. Chaos will come to the land of America."
The American clairvoyant also had terrible visions Valdez Jr., who talked about “flocks” of hundreds of flying people, whom a hurricane wind, like locusts, lifted up and smashed and flattened against skyscrapers, about mountains of corpses and simply pieces of bodies without legs, arms, or heads.
In general, out of several dozen disastrous predictions widely known in the world regarding global catastrophes and cataclysms, 80 percent relate to the fate of America. In second place are prophecies related to Great Britain. The third is the Apennine Peninsula. And here’s what’s remarkable: there is a complete lack of positivity in the predictions related to the fate of America. If other countries, judging by the prophecies, at the very least, but still “come around”, climb out of the abyss and ultimately continue to exist. As for the United States, the forecast of prophets, clairvoyants, soothsayers and psychics is the same - inevitable death. It will simply be swept off the face of the earth into the sea. Moreover, the picture of what will happen to America often coincides in people who are completely unfamiliar with each other and living in different times, down to the smallest detail - and this says a lot.
It is impossible to ignore one more fact that speaks for itself: among the predictors who promise the United States a deplorable fate, there are a lot of Americans - they seem to sense on a subtle level what will happen in the future to the land on which a person was born and to which he is connected by an invisible umbilical cord . This also confirms the high probability of the predictions made by the Americans themselves. Although there is a large percentage of those of us who, perhaps rightly, believe that no one knows the future. It’s not for nothing that they say (sometimes with good reason): if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. So we have to wait. So we'll wait and see.
Rising sea levels are quite real, but instead of flooding the land, we should expect an increase in its area.
New estimates of the rate of sea level rise have given rise to downright panicky comments in the press - they say that the largest US cities will be flooded by 2100. It is easy to see that in Russia, too, huge areas should be flooded. Others point to coastal cities, located tens of meters below sea level, and yet have existed comfortably for centuries and millennia. Who is right - pessimists or optimists? Is it worth doing anything at all in connection with the onset of the sea or “it will do as it is”?
Is the person to blame?
Today people emit 33 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, mostly from burning coal. It’s not difficult to check these data; just remember that in the reaction C + O 2 = CO 2, humanity adds this same C (coal) 8 billion tons per year. There are only three trillion tons of carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere, which means we are adding more than a percent extra per year. Half of this percentage is absorbed by vegetation and rocks, and no one has time to absorb half. This makes carbon dioxide - which is now about 400 parts per million in the air - increase by two parts per million every year.
wide-legged." Therefore, it easily absorbs long waves of infrared radiation, "flowing around" smaller molecules of other air gases. Hence the inevitable warming, from which reconstructions of the defeat of the dog knights on the ice of Lake Peipus have to be carried out on snow-free dry grass. Warming annually is a quarter of a trillion tons ice in Greenland alone, and also warms the water on the surface of the seas - and it expands due to heating. The influx of melt water and the expansion of sea water mean an inevitable rise in sea level, according to the latest satellite data - by 3.2 millimeters per year.
It doesn’t sound particularly scary, but this means 32 centimeters per hundred years. If the level of carbon dioxide emissions remains at the same level and does not decrease, a sharp acceleration is possible. Then by 2100 the World Ocean may rise by 0.6 meters. The most radical ecologists round this figure to the nearest meter. However, the latter assessment, frankly speaking, lacks any scientific basis and we would not recommend taking it seriously.
And yet you can’t brush aside the whole sea. In many coastal cities, a very large part of the territory lies 30–60 centimeters below sea level. In addition, as the sea rises, it washes away the shores more intensely with breaking and storm waves and, as a result, can “eat” them more than can be expected from these seemingly small 32 centimeters. Don't forget one more thing - sea level will not stop rising in 2100, but will continue to rise for hundreds of years until CO 2 returns to its previous level.
The process of “eating” sushi has already begun. The mosaic-tailed reef rat on Bramble Cay, off Papua New Guinea, was declared extinct by rising sea levels in 2016. Its low island began to be flooded too much by storms, raising the water noticeably higher normal level. The unfortunate unique species of rodent is banal until the last specimen.
How fast is the Earth's landmass shrinking?
Common sense tells us that if the sea advances, then the land area should decrease. As is often the case, common sense is wrong.
According to satellite images, water reclaimed 115,000 square kilometers from land between 1986 and 2016. But the onset of the sea has nothing to do with it. It took only 20,135 square kilometers - less than a fifth. Where more area conquered lakes formed on the site of former Himalayan glaciers, as well as ordinary lakes and rivers, which became fuller due to more rainfall. After all, an increase in global temperatures inevitably leads to an increase in evaporation, and all evaporated water must fall somewhere - which is why precipitation will continue to increase.
During the same time, land took away 173,000 square kilometers from the sea (a full percentage of Russia's territory). Eventually total area of the earth's surface for 58,000 square kilometers. But this is larger than the territory of Croatia and approximately equal to Latvia. How did this happen?
The answer to this question is obvious. Rising temperatures and evaporation levels mean that areas where there used to be swamps are gradually drying up. When temperatures were lower, the water did not have time to evaporate from there, but after warming, it began to do so. As a result, rivers, lakes and reservoirs close to them reduce their area. For example, in the Ob basin, the area of water has decreased by three thousand square kilometers over 30 years. Of course, this will not continue indefinitely - after the depletion of Siberian-type swamps, the process will inevitably stop.
The advance of the sea is an unplanned consequence of human activity. However, in addition to random, thoughtless actions, a person sometimes takes deliberate actions. Rarely, but it happens. Among them is irrigation, which takes water from lakes and reservoirs (just remember the former Aral Sea). Due to this factor and the retreat of rivers and swamps in waterlogged regions, the land gained almost 140 thousand square kilometers.
What remains is the strengthening of the sea coasts, as well as the deliberate expansion of land by man at the expense of the sea. They took 33,700 square kilometers. That is, in the struggle between sea and land, the earth's firmament leads with a score of 34:20.
In general, the forecast is disappointing. The advance of the sea will continue to lead to a reduction in its area and an expansion of land areas. What’s even worse is that the forces of nature itself have already begun to join this process.
Natural expansion of land
The fact is that the land on which we live is something like foam formed when cooking broth. The earth's mantle acts as a broth, incredibly heated and filled with rising hot currents. It lifts up lighter rocks, and it is these that form the continental crust, floating on top of the global ocean of magma. Ice at the poles and on mountain glaciers appeared in noticeable quantities geologically recently - even 40 million years ago there was much more CO 2 in the Earth’s air, therefore permanent ice there were none at the poles.
After the formation of the ice caps, they began to put pressure with their mass on the continental crust near the poles, and it began to “sink” - to sink lower into the mantle. That is why the Antarctic Lake Vostok, which arose as a reservoir on the surface of the Earth, today is half a kilometer below sea level - this is how this area was “pressed” down by four kilometers of ice accumulated above it.
Let's go back to today. Global warming, caused by human negligence, is leading to the melting of ice. Because of it, Greenland becomes a trillion tons a year lighter - and sooner or later this will lead to the fact that the island will stop “sinking” and begin to “float”. Then the area of its hard rocks located above sea level will begin to grow noticeably. Fortunately, this process is long-term, so those living today will not experience it. However, future generations will inevitably have to face it.
There is another unpleasant mechanism by which nature itself increases the land area. As already Life, rising sea levels lead to the advance of breaking waves onto the shore. If there are no “dragging” currents near the shore, then there is nothing to carry away sand and other solid particles from the shore being eroded by the waves. As a result, the surf carries them back to the shore - but already higher than they were before the surf. This process has already increased the area of Tuvalu by 2.9 percent (for 1971–2014). Considering that the process of sea invasion is at the very beginning, many more ocean islands can expect an increase in area.
Another mechanism for the natural growth of continents is river sediment. Back in the period Ancient Egypt the modern Nile Delta was a sea. But the waters of the Nile intensively eroded its banks and brought a lot of sedimentary rocks, gradually “washing out” the modern Nile delta. As the planet's temperatures and precipitation increase, water erosion will increase. More rain inland will produce more particles, which rivers carry to the shores of the seas. They will create new delta islands, and the sea will become even smaller.
Why is the United States, on the one hand, “afraid” of drowning, and on the other hand, prohibits the taking of land from the sea?
Once upon a time in the States there were no legal restrictions on the reconquest of land from the sea - and then this country was actively involved in such things. For example, the main part of the city of San Francisco was the sea, the shores of which were extended into the sea by private developers - for example, dredgers, special vessels that extract wet soil from the seabed and wash it onto the shore.
As often happens with private initiative not limited by the state, things went uphill. It quickly became clear that the cost of a hectare of land in a port city is noticeably higher than the cost of reclamation of a hectare of land near the coast. By the 1960s, there was a very real danger of the disappearance of San Francisco Bay - the greed of private developers was reducing its area so quickly that the townspeople became seriously worried.
A movement was created, which, as its name suggests, aimed to preserve the bay. Moreover, by that time its area had increased from 1800 to 1000 square kilometers. The results of the struggle are impressive - since then the attack on the sea there has stopped. And this is the best illustration of how much the “advance of the sea” really worries the people of the United States.
What will really happen
Apocalyptic pictures of drowned cities have very little relation to reality. Even without any centralized action at the US federal level major cities This country is threatened very little by the sea. Coastal cities are already constantly building dams, dams or artificial beaches (all the beaches of Miami are like this, for example). It is inexpensive, but during storms, when the water level rises by meters, it greatly reduces the scale of destruction. All this coastal protection infrastructure is constantly being updated, and as sea levels rise by 3.2 millimeters per year, it will gradually adapt to this increase.
Some kind of flooding is possible only where the state is centralized, but at the same time so weak that it does not take any measures to protect against storms at all. There are no such strange states in the world yet. Even Bangladesh, for which the greens often prophesy death in the waves, in fact. Yes, in theory it can be assumed that if Russia again falls into a coma, as in 1917–1921 or in 1991–1999, then it is quite possible that it will not be able to respond to rising sea levels. In practice this is unrealistic. The Time of Troubles here does not last longer than tens of years, and during this time the onset of the water element will not have time to lead to significant consequences.
In addition, we must understand that global warming will be accompanied by an increase in population density in the northern regions of the country. If today's forecasts are correct, then by the end of this century Murmansk will have the climate of modern Yaroslavl, or even Moscow. Obviously, a more developed and populated coast will be much easier to protect with dams - construction capacity will be closer.
Nevertheless, this is not a reason to do nothing. In our country there are very sparsely populated regions with low coastlines - such as some coastal areas of Yamal and the coast of the Arctic Ocean in general. There is practically no strong surf that could “raise” the coastline, like Tuvalu. There is little infrastructure there, and without it and the gradual rise of the coastline, the sea will flood large areas before the federal government comes to its senses and develops some kind of action plan. Considering how “suddenly” winter is coming in our cities for city authorities, there is no doubt that the reaction to the flooding of the shores of the Russian Arctic will also be somewhat delayed.
However, once the state realizes the existence of such a problem, combating it will not be too difficult. A sea level rise of 0.32 meters in a hundred years may sound big problem- after all, Russia has about 40 thousand kilometers of coastline (however, some of them are quite high). But if the efforts to protect the banks are distributed evenly, the equivalent of only four hundred kilometers of dams per year will have to be built. A dam as high as a school ruler. The main thing is to start early.
In the coming decades, the familiar map of the world may change greatly: according to the forecasts of a number of scientists, many island states will disappear, and mainland countries will lose their coastal territories.
According to the latest data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has reached unprecedented levels. Because of this, the ice of Antarctica, the Arctic and Greenland continues to melt, and the world's oceans are rapidly warming and rising - at a rate of 3.2 mm per year (before 1993, the rate was 1.2 mm per year). According to various forecasts, by 2100 the sea level will be 0.5–2 m higher than today. At the same time, some countries will sink in the coming years, literally before our eyes.
Islands
Among the first to “go to the bottom” are the island states: the atolls of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They are threatened by, if not complete, then partial flooding, which will begin from the coastline, where most of their infrastructure, including tourist facilities, is located. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change named in its report the most vulnerable areas of the Earth for which global warming could become fatal. These are the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Cook Islands, Atigua, Nevis, as well as the Maldives, beloved by tourists. Let's talk about two of them in more detail.
Maldives, Indian Ocean
If you haven't been to the Maldives yet, you should hurry up. According to researchers, this entire paradise with snow-white beaches, cozy bungalows and hotel islands will drown in 50 years. The Maldives is a chain of 20 atolls formed by 1,192 coral islands, and most of them rise to just 1 m - highest point protrudes 2.3 m above the Indian Ocean. The Government of the Maldives annually transfers part of the income from tourism to a specially created fund, the funds from which are intended to purchase new lands to replace flooded ones. The territories of India and Sri Lanka are considered as an alternate “homeland”, since the culture of these countries is very close to the culture of the inhabitants of the Maldives.
Republic of Kiribati, Pacific Ocean
32 of the 33 atolls on which the Republic of Kiribati is located are low-lying: most of them rise 2 m above the Pacific Ocean. According to experts, by 2050 these islands may become uninhabitable: they are threatened by erosion and then complete flooding . Since 2010, the Kiribati authorities have been sounding all alarm bells and looking for new territories to resettle residents - and this is more than 100,000 people. They recently bought a plot of land from a neighboring state, Fiji, and also agreed with Australia and New Zealand to resettle some people to their undeveloped territories. However, many residents do not want to move to a foreign land, and the acquired space is not enough for everyone. Therefore, there is also plan “B”: creating artificial island. The Japanese company Shimizu Corporation has developed a detailed project for the new land and calculated that its implementation requires $2 billion. Kiribati does not have it, and the country's president, Anote Tong, asked the international community for help.
Europe
Everyone is equal before the world's oceans: it threatens not only small remote islands, but also the lands of prosperous Europe. One of the first, according to some scientists, will be Holland. Climatologists at the Delft University of Technology said two years ago that the Netherlands’ sinking under water was inevitable and called on the country’s authorities to think through a path to evacuation of the population: first it would be necessary to resettle residents of coastal areas, and then look for new lands for all the rest of the Dutch. According to other forecasts, Copenhagen, Antwerp, London and Venice are also at risk.
Venice
The famous Italian city on the water, according to scientists, may become uninhabitable as early as 2028, and by 2100 it will completely go under water. Only in the 20th century the city on the water “sank” by 23 cm.
The reason is not only the advance of the world ocean onto land, but also the reckless economic activity human: industrial water extraction from artesian wells and rapid construction cause soil subsidence. Floods have become a common occurrence for residents: up to 45% of the city is regularly flooded with water brought in by the tide from the Adriatic Sea. And if a hundred years ago St. Mark's Square was flooded about nine times a year, now it happens about a hundred times a year.
The 1966 flood was a record high: the tide reached a height of 194 cm higher than usual. After this, the Italian government became seriously concerned about the problem of flooding in Venice and began to look for options to save the ancient city. The panacea was supposed to be the MOSE project - an entire system of protective dams and barriers, which was planned to be put into operation in 2017. However, a significant part of the funds was stolen, and 35 high-ranking officials and businessmen were arrested last year, including the former mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni. In addition, experts doubt that the project was calculated correctly and is really capable of protecting the “pearl of the Adriatic”.
The historical center of the city may collapse in the coming years, experts say. And they have reason to worry: St. Mark's was flooded nearly 200 times in 2014 alone.
Russia
From Russian territories, scientists predict the threat of flooding to the Yamal Peninsula and St. Petersburg. This was, in particular, discussed by German specialists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change at the UN conference on combating climate change. The forecast of the Ministry of Natural Resources, announced in 2009, also looks disappointing: due to global warming, such regions of Russia as St. Petersburg, Yamal, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions may be flooded in 2025–2050. But Russian climatologists are more optimistic about the situation.
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, director of the Earth Cryosphere Institute Vladimir Melnikov recently reported that in the next 30 years, the inhabitants of the Earth will not experience warming, but, on the contrary, cooling. He noted that we have not yet reached the warm temperatures that existed during the reign of Genghis Khan, which means that no catastrophe is expected. As for St. Petersburg, here too, according to him, Western colleagues are mistaken: the water level in the Gulf of Finland is rising more slowly than in the whole world, adding 2 mm per year, which means it is too early to classify the Northern capital as a “drowned city.” "
Asia
In Asia, scientists classify Bangladesh, Bangkok, Bombay and the coastal areas of China, including Shanghai, as “sinking”.
Bangladesh
One of the world's most populous countries will be forced to relocate tens of millions of people from low-lying areas to higher elevations. In particular, the Russian scientist Valery Malinin, Doctor of Geographical Sciences, Professor of the Russian State Hydrometeorological University, spoke about this. Since 1993, he has been analyzing satellite observations of global sea levels and has made a bleak forecast for many cities, including Bombay, Tokyo and Bangladesh, to become uninhabitable by 2100.
Bangkok
An alarming future awaits the capital of Thailand. Bangkok, according to scientists, is sinking at a rate of up to 5 cm/year and may be completely submerged by 2050. The reason for this is not only rising sea levels, but also the depletion of underground aquifers with fresh water. The city with a population of more than 5.6 million people is becoming too heavy for the soil and is inexorably sinking under the weight of skyscrapers and developed infrastructure.
Africa
It would seem that Africa is more threatened by drought than by floods. But the sea is also advancing on this continent. The highest threat is to the capital of The Gambia, Banjul. Due to rising sea levels and erosion, authorities are already having to strengthen the coastline. The loss of coastal areas could be costly for The Gambia, which is home to rice paddies, fishing centers and tourist attractions. According to experts, gradually all settlements on the coast will be flooded, this threatens the loss of more than half of the mangrove forests in the country and a fifth of all rice fields. Forbes magazine included Banjul in its list of cities that will become ghost towns by 2100.
Australia
Recently, Australian scientists released a report with a pessimistic forecast: the climate in Australia is changing faster than in other areas of the world, which means global warming will be felt more acutely here. This means that the ocean rises near the Green Continent at a faster rate. Over the past century, it has become 20 cm higher. It was previously reported that on the west coast of Australia the water level is increasing at a record speed: 8.6 mm per year - almost three times faster than the world average. Every year, higher waves roll onto the shore and floods become more destructive. At the same time, the most populated areas of the country, where 80% of the population live, are at risk.
North America
American scientists have repeatedly predicted the death of many US cities, including New York, New Orleans and Los Angeles. According to a recent study by Benjamin Strauss from the Climate Central organization, 1,400 US cities located in the states of Florida, Louisiana, California, New Jersey, and North Carolina are at risk. New Orleans is the champion in the fastest dive in America. Since 1878, the city has dropped by more than 4.5 m. In the north of the country, unprecedented melting of ice is already being observed - it has caused the death of 40% of the population of polar bears living in the ice of the Beaufort Sea.
South America
According to scientists' forecasts, in Latin America Uruguay and Paraguay, as well as the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, will be under water.
One Argentine city in the province of Buenos Aires has already achieved the status of New Atlantis - this is Lago Epecuen. It was under water for 25 years, having been flooded due to a dam failure on the local Lake Epecuen in 1985 (preceded by heavy rainfall since 1980). At the time of the disaster, about 5,000 people lived in the town; it was loved by tourists who came to the salty reservoir to relax. Fortunately, the city was gradually flooded, and people managed to leave their homes. In 1993, Lago Epecuen lay at a depth of 10 m and had the glory of the Argentine Atlantis. However, gradually the water dried up, and by 2009 the city became inhabitable again - local old-timer Pablo Navak, who is now 85 years old and who still remains the only resident of this destroyed settlement, returned to it. The city that rose from the water was renamed the village of Villa Epecuen and is a tourist Mecca.
The US East Coast faces increased flooding in the future. This conclusion was reached by scientists from the University of Bonn, the Universities of South Florida and Rhode Island.
The states of Virginia, North and South Carolina, according to them, face the greatest risk. Their coastal regions are sinking at a rate of approximately 3 mm per year, primarily due to anthropogenic factors. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports, which belongs to the Nature publishing group.
Flooding in East Coast cities such as Miami has already become a very common occurrence. They are caused by hurricanes such as Katrina or the modern Harvey and Irma, but these cities are often flooded on sunny and relatively calm days. Although this does not result in casualties, it does cause damage to homes and infrastructure and impede traffic flow. We are talking about the so-called “nuisance flooding”.
Scientists have come to the conclusion that in the future these “troubles” will only become more frequent. An international team of scientists used GPS and satellite data to study the geophysical parameters of the East Coast. It turned out that it was slowly but steadily sinking into the Atlantic Ocean.
“There are at least two reasons for this phenomenon,” explains scientist Makan Karegar from the University of South Florida (now a visiting researcher at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation at the University of Bonn). “During the last ice age, about 20 thousand years ago, a large part of Canada was covered by an ice sheet This gigantic mass of ice pressed on the continent, forcing it to sink in the central part and at the same time rise in the coastal regions. When the glacier melted, this process began. reverse side, and now the East Coast, on the contrary, is being submerged. This has been going on for several millennia.”
However, this geological effect only partially explains the flooding of coastal regions. Indeed, during the last decade, the subsidence of the area between 32 and 38 degrees latitude occurred much faster than during the previous thousand years, and in some parts it reached a speed of 3 mm per year. Melting ice sheets are responsible for only a third of this figure.
Scientists believe that the reason for this is intensive mining groundwater. Water, like carbon dioxide bubbles in a cake, causes some of the land to rise up. “Groundwater holds back land subsidence. Without them, the earth shrinks even faster,” says Makan Karegar.
Many cities on the American East Coast were founded in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The researchers calculated that due to the glacier effect alone, these cities now lie about 45 cm lower than four hundred years ago. Behind last years they sank much faster in some places due to groundwater withdrawal. The next factor is rising sea levels due to global warming.
This growth, according to scientists, should greatly accelerate in the future. “Even if groundwater drainage is reduced, flooding will continue to increase,” warns Karegar. - The amount of money spent on restoring damaged infrastructure will also only increase. Therefore, it is logical to assume that it is in the interests of the United States to combat climate change with all its resources.”
The USA will drown - if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. American scientists themselves are predicting a catastrophe.
Will be bad
Hurricanes equal in strength to Hurricane Sandy, which flooded New York in 2012, hit the United States every 24 years. This conclusion was reached by American scientists from Rutgers University, who studied how much the water rose here over the past few thousand years, writes Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Previously, such catastrophic floods, when the water level rose by 2.25 meters, happened once every 500 years. But global warming and rising sea levels have made disasters more frequent.
Consequences of Hurricane Sandy.
As Benjamin Horton predicts in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, once every 130 years the water in New York could rise higher - almost 3 meters. Previously, this happened no more than once every 3,000 years.
Rising waters flood New York
Or even worse
Horton's university colleagues dug even deeper a couple of years ago - they studied rocks in Virginia (USA), New Zealand and Enewetak Atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. The rocks were deposits of the Pliocene era, which began 5 million years ago and ended approximately 2.5 million years later. The climate then was generally similar to the present one, but the average temperature on the planet was 2-3 degrees higher. This is exactly what it could become in the near future if global warming does not stop.
Having examined the isotopic composition of sediments, scientists found that the sea level was 20 meters higher than it is today. Therefore, in the future, water may rise so high as a result of the melting of polar ice. Then the flood scenarios based on Horton's calculations will seem simply rosy.
The near future of the US coast.
It's impossible not to get wet
Antarctica is melting. There are regular reports that huge layers of ice are slipping and breaking off. And according to the observations of meteorologists, in the second half of the 20th century alone, the average annual air temperature in the southern polar regions increased by 2.5 degrees Celsius. And it continues to rise. As a result, global warming may lead to the fact that there will be no ice left in Antarctica.
Jerry Mitrovica and her colleagues from the University of Toronto in Canada have a different opinion. The researcher assures that the previous forecasts did not take into account the details. Namely, they are the ones who threaten us with serious troubles. For example, a flood for America and the countries of Southeast Asia.
According to Jerry, the ice cap at the South Pole is now creating a bubble of water around Antarctica due to its gravitational pull. There will be no ice - the bubble will rush to the north, where the water level will rise.
Further, the continent, free of ice and its colossal pressure, will itself rise by 100 meters. A blast, to put it simply. Which will create additional water flows. And all together, redistributed, they will shift the earth’s axis. About 500 meters, according to Canadian calculations published in the highly scientific journal Science. And such a displacement can create catastrophic swellings on the surface of the ocean.
Governments of countries located on the shores of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans should be aware of this threat, says Natalya Gomez, who participated in the research. - We need to add a few more meters to the previous forecasts.
On average, scientists predict a rise in global sea levels of about 7 meters. And they scare the residents of New York and Washington with complete flooding. And in certain areas of the coast with strong tides, a catastrophe similar to the one shown in the film “The Day After Tomorrow” can occur.
The film "The Day After Tomorrow" may turn out to be prophetic.
