Take a lot of pictures of New York City, because your ancestors might not be seeing much of it.
What was once known as Lower Manhattan will be absorbed into the sea; Coney Island will become Coney Sandbar; and you won't be able to fly out of any of the region's three major airports — because planes obviously can't land on flooded runways.
That's according to a map built by Climate Central with recent data published by Science magazine.
The map shows the permanent effects of what 20 feet of water would do to America's shorelines. This 20-foot rise may happen if the planet warms by two degrees Celsius, which, according to Climate Central, could "possibly" happen as early as the year 2200. For some perspective, two degrees Celsius is the target number for limiting global warming in current climate negotiations.
In the dangerously-close-to-sea-level New York City area, this kind of rise in sea level will lead to the disappearance of large swaths of land in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.
Lower Manhattan will be mostly underwater, especially the East Village, the West Village, Tribeca, and almost all of Chelsea. For Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and large portions of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant will meet a soggy fate. In Queens, all of Long Island City and a large western portion of Astoria will be underwater.
In southern Brooklyn and Queens, Coney Island, the Rockaways, and many other seaside neighborhoods won't survive.
Western Harlem will be spared, but much of Eastern Harlem won't.
All three of the area's major airports (Newark Liberty International Airport, LaGuardia International Airport, and JFK International Airport) will be underwater if the seas rise 20 feet.
As Curbed notes, this would result in the displacement of at least 1.8 million people. Click here to see the rest of the map.
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