And over the last century, mostly due to global warming, sea level has risen about a foot along much of the coast, placing even more people and homes at risk than would have otherwise been the case.
This map below shows lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and New Jersey. The blue area identifies the land zone within five vertical feet of the average high tide line, toward the upper end of the range of surge heights NOAA is predicting for the immediate area. Based on 2010 Census information and Climate Central's map analysis, almost a quarter million (233,000) people live in this zone for all of New York City. That's 28 percent (65,000 people) more than live within the four-foot zone - the line we would be talking about if the sea hadn't risen a foot over the last hundred years. About two-thirds of that rise appears to come from global warming. Read the full report here.
Source: by Climate Central, Grist.
