In the film 2012 new York gets flooded and now new York is flooding!?

[Mr. Smartypants]

For many years now people have known that global warming (or global climate change) was causing polar ice to melt and that this would raise sea-level around the world. This is a threat to all coastal cities, which is a LOT of cities around the world. One film I saw (I can't remember which but it might have been 2012) showed the city of New York entirely under water except for the tops of a few tall buildings. This made an interesting scene, but nobody really expects the oceans to rise quite that much.

A few feet of oceans rising will threaten cities when there is a full tide and a storm surge or even a hurricane. New York and many places along the east coast are considering building seawalls now, and other barriers, maybe even dikes. Some small island nations' whole existence is threatened, like the Maldives and Tuvalu. But New York won't be under water, just more threatened with damage from severe stormes, like Sandy, and we expect those storms to be more frequent in the future.