Science
Related: About this forumSevere Drought is Causing the Western U.S. to Rise
The severe drought gripping the western United States in recent years is changing the landscape well beyond localized effects of water restrictions and browning lawns. Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have now discovered that the growing, broad-scale loss of water is causing the entire western U.S. to rise up like an uncoiled spring.
Investigating ground positioning data from GPS stations throughout the west, Scripps researchers Adrian Borsa, Duncan Agnew, and Dan Cayan found that the water shortage is causing an uplift effect up to 15 millimeters (more than half an inch) in Californias mountains and on average four millimeters (0.15 of an inch) across the west. From the GPS data, they estimate the water deficit at nearly 240 gigatons (63 trillion gallons of water), equivalent to a four-inch layer of water spread out over the entire western U.S.
Results of the study, which was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), appear in the August 21 online edition of the journal Science.
While poring through various sets of data of ground positions from highly precise GPS stations within the National Science Foundations Plate Boundary Observatory and other networks, Borsa, a Scripps assistant research geophysicist, kept noticing the same pattern over the 2003-2014 period: All of the stations moved upwards in the most recent years, coinciding with the timing of the current drought.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/severe-drought-causing-western-us-rise
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts).... will it throw TX, KS, OK, and AZ far from us? Please?
packman
(16,296 posts)My wife was right when she said she felt the earth move.
littlemissmartypants
(22,797 posts)That's why the head of my bed is higher than the foot. Got my feng sway swag all outta wak.
I love science.
Thanks for your post, jakeXT.
Love, Peace and Shelter.
Lmsp 🙌