It is a well established fact that many places around the world face severe flooding threats due to global warming and rising sea levels. And the latest to be added to this list are many prominent office campuses in United States’ Silicon Valley, including those of Facebook and Google.
A team of scientists have come out with a report saying that these companies in the Silicon Valley face the risk of getting flooded and could even be completely submerged.
“Facebook is very vulnerable. They built on a very low site. I do not know why they chose to build there. Facebook thinks they can pay enough to protect themselves,” Lindy Lowe, a senior planner at California’s Bay Conservation and Development Commission, was quoted as saying in a Guardian report.
Its office campus is a 430,000 square feet complex at the San Francisco Bay shoreline. Experts say that despite its campus being elevated, it is under threat given a 1.6-foot rise in sea levels is expected by the end of the century.
Even the offices of Google and Cisco are at risk although they are placed at locations which are comparatively safer.
However, it is not the first time such a threat has been issued. A report published by Climate Central in 2014 expressed similar concerns and stated that the rising sea levels could flood Silicon Valley.