The enormous weight of skyscrapers helps sink New York

The Atlantis of the coming centuries could be New York.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 May 2023 Monday 14:30
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The enormous weight of skyscrapers helps sink New York

The Atlantis of the coming centuries could be New York.

In the dialogues of Timaeus and Crítias, Plato tells how the mythical island arose, a rich, powerful and advanced power in its time, and how it was swallowed up by the sea, in the form of a tsunami or giant wave . He speculates that this was due to a punishment from the gods for the pride of its residents.

The cave philosopher wrote it based on hearsay. Those who confirm the submersion of the Big Apple, which will not be in one day and one night like Atlantis, do so based on a scientific study that has just been published by the Earths Future Journal, made by three oceanographers from the University from Rhode Island with the collaboration of researchers from the United States Geological Survey.

Perhaps there is also a bit of arrogance in the ever-increasing challenge to the heights in this Babylon of modernity.

From the economic centers of the financial district in lower Manhattan or the new buildings that rise in Brooklyn and Queens, passing through the identity signs of the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Tower, to the ultra-modern skyscrapers of the corridor of billionaires, all these peaks shape the identity of New York, its famous skyline.

These buildings that give the Big Apple its sense of swagger also contribute to its decline.

Because New York is collapsing in part, states the aforementioned study, due to the extraordinary weight of its vertiginous skyscrapers. This circumstance continues to worsen the exposure to floods that the global metropolis is exposed to as a result of sea level rise due to the impact of climate change.

Global warming is exacerbating the collapse. The water level surrounding New York has risen 22 centimeters since 1950 and major floods may quadruple their frequency by the end of the century.

The annual average of this land subsidence is between one and two millimeters, although the figure doubles in some areas. "A highly concentrated population of 8.4 million people faces varying degrees of danger from flooding in New York," the document notes.

This is a risk that it shares with other coastal cities in the world due to the climate emergency. In this area "the problem accelerates", the study points out.

This trend is magnified by the enormous infrastructure built in the Big Apple. This work states that the metropolis has 1,084,954 buildings. The accumulated mass is distributed over 778.2 square kilometers. Based on these figures, scientists calculate that the weight is 762,048 million metric tons. Put in comparison, this is equivalent to 1,381 pyramids of Giza (Egypt).

This enormous weight is pushing New York to the bottom. Although many of the large properties sit on a bed of solid rock, such as shale, there is a mixture of other sands and clays that have accumulated, adding to a sinking effect that goes from natural way

"Continued exposure of building foundations to salt water can corrode the reinforcing steel and chemically weaken the concrete", he points out. Although this also happens in other coastal environments, the "overweight" of New York complicates the situation.

"There should be no immediate panic", they pointed out. The softer the ground, the greater the compression of the buildings, they continue. It was not a mistake to build large buildings in the city of skyscrapers, but they recommend keeping in mind that every building that rises presses the ground downwards, towards Atlantis.