Major cities on the U.S. northeast coast could find themselves suffering the effects of a rising sea level if an ice sheet in Greenland continues to melt at its present pace, scientists warned this week. Sea levels off the northeast coast of North America, home to cities including New York and Boston, could rise by 12 to 20 inches more than other coastal areas if the Greenland glacier-melt continues, they said. “If the Greenland melt continues to accelerate, we could see significant impacts this century on the northeast U.S. coast from the resulting sea level rise,” said Aixie Hu, lead author of an article on the subject in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “Major northeastern cities are directly in the path of the greatest rise,” said Hu, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The massive increase would be caused by the influx of fresh water into the salty north Atlantic Ocean which scientists predict could change the ocean's circulation pattern. The figures are worse than a previous study suggested because the latest research includes results based in the possibility of continued Greenland ice sheet melting. Residents along the coast could face the risk of flooding, damage to drainage systems filled with saltier water and a change in the ecosystem. “In a flooding zone, because the higher sea level may impede the function of the drainage system, the future flood may become more severe,” he told AP. The melting ice would affect the northeastern United States the most because rising sea levels does not increase evenly around the globe. Greenland's ice-melt rate has increased by 7 percent a year since 1996 but Hu said his research was based on more moderate scenarios with ice-melt increasing by 3 percent or 1 percent annually.
