Dozens of Long Island Communities Could Be Underwater In 2100

It’s the year 2100, and the eastern coast of Manhattan now reaches 1st Avenue in many places. LaGuardia and JFK airports have both been consumed by the sea. And things are no better on Long Island.

The South Shore is a completely different place. In Nassau, the City of Long Beach is gone. The Five Towns are down to about two. And Jones Beach -- once the most popular beach in the country -- is now just a playground for fishes. Just about everything south of Merrick Road is under water.

Suffolk fares no better. All of the beautiful beachfront homes of the Hamptons have been erased. Montauk Highway runs underwater in some places. And Montauk itself has been cut off from the rest of the area, becoming its own island.

This apocalyptic scenario doesn't come from Hollywood, but from sea level predictions released by the National and Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and published by the scientific publication Climate Central. The report outlines the "unlikely but increasingly plausible" extreme sea level rise that could hit the world by 2100.

It would impact all coastal states in the U.S. Florida would be hit hardest, but New York City would suffer as well. And the entire South Shore of Long Island would be underwater. The North Shore fares better, but the coast would still come inland. More than 150 Long Island towns would be impacted.

“More than 99 percent of today’s population in 252 coastal towns and cities would have their homes submerged, and property of more than half the population in 479 additional communities would also be underwater," according to the report. “In New York City, an average high tide would be two feet higher than Sandy’s flood level, covering an area currently inhabited by more than 800,000 residents. Florida would be the most affected state by total population, followed by New York, California, Virginia, and New Jersey."

This, however, is the absolute worst-case scenario. But the best-case isn’t too great for Long Island, either. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a sea-level rise of one to three feet by 2100 -- a change that would still cause significant flooding in many coastal Long Island communities.

You can zoom in on the Climate Central maps here.

Photo: Patch