2050 May Include A Pond At Canal and West Broadway

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Climate Central, a nonprofit research organization that seeks to bring greater attention to climate studies, has launched a website that allows users to project rising sea levels on a map of the United States.

The map tool includes a slider that allows you to scroll forward through decades of rising sea levels and follow the ocean incursion across topography. Among other discoveries, the map shows that 2050 may include the appearance of a pond at Canal Street and West Broadway.

As noted in the New York Times,

“The project…appears to be the most elaborate effort in decades to estimate the proportion of the national population at risk from the rising sea…The work is based on the 2010 census and on improved estimates, compiled by federal agencies, of the land elevation near coastlines and of tidal levels throughout the country.”

Climate Central estimates 3.7 million Americans live in areas subject to risk. In New York, designers, leaders and institutions are already thinking about the long term challenge — as exemplified by solutions shown in the 2010 MoMA exhibit Rising Currents.