‘Underwater cities, 200 mph winds, Category 6 storm’: New book warns of dire climate change consequences

An international team of more than 60 scientists has warned of an impending ‘Ultra-intense Category 6’ hurricane in the United States due to climate change, the Daily Mail reported. The experts noted that the burning of fossil fuels has upended the Earth's systems, ushering in a “dark new age of mega-hurricanes”.

They also predicted that we would see the phenomenon around 2100 and dubbed the theoretical storm ‘Hurricane Danielle’. The forecasts were compiled in a book titled ‘Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them’ by author Porter Fox, the report added.

Besides scientists, the book also examines testimonies from sailors who have dealt with extreme weather on the seas first-hand, and salvage ship crew and tugboat operators, who clean up after hurricanes year-after-year, it said.

What Does ‘Ultra-Intense Category 6’ Mean?

According to the experts, an ultra-intense Category 6 storm would imply winds exceeding 192 miles per hour (mph) and a 25-foot rise in seawater, which would directly impact coastal residential areas, including megacities such as New York and Miami.

Further, they predict that, unlike most Atlantic storms which hit Florida, the predicted mega-hurricane will likely strike New York — moving through the channel between Staten Island and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. The same path was last taken by 2012's devastating Hurricane Sandy.

"Destruction will be on a scale never seen in the Northeast ... more like a cyclone on the floodplains of India or Bangladesh than wind events in the tristate," Fox wrote in the book.

Predicted Impact: New York Underwater, Bridge Snapped...

The hypothetical 'Hurricane Danielle' is predicted to enter the New York Harbour, where its wind force would likely rattle and snap the three-foot thick suspension cables of the Verrazano-​Narrows Bridge.

Fox's book predicts that the whole of Governors Island will be "subsumed in a wall of whitewater. Most windows in the Freedom Tower, built to withstand gusts up to two hundred miles per hour, will blow out."

Further, the retaining walls built around Battery Park, as part of the ongoing $1.7 billion-plus Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency climate adaptation plan, are expected to be overwhelmed. "Ocean and river water will mix at the eastern edge of Tompkins Square Park as water flows freely through the streets of Chinatown, Little Italy, and the chic boutiques and bistros of NoHo and SoHo," according to Fox.

Dire Consequences Predicted

"Still, to come from the right quadrant of the storm are gusts topping 220 mph, strong enough to blow the roof off the Metropolitan Museum of Art ... This swarm of cyclones will cause unthinkable damage in tiny swaths of the city, leaving furrows carved through parks, neighbourhoods, and streets," the book adds.

Fox also noted that the predicted 48-hour storm and rising sea water together would pose "compounding forces of climate change" for New York. He estimated that the death toll of an 'Ultra-​Intense Category 6' hitting New York will approach something close to 42,000 human lives.

"Thousands of families torn apart. Hundreds of neighbourhoods erased. Industries gone. Transit crippled. The character and viability of America's largest city shattered [...] In the weeks and months that follow, residents and officials will grapple with the impossible question of whether or not to rebuild," he wrote.

For Miami, he predicted that by 2100, the city would no longer exist.