Humans Causing California's Mountains To Grow 36
New submitter Megan Sever writes: "This is a cool story about anthropogenic effects of water withdrawal moving mountains — literally. According to new research published today (abstract) and reported in EARTH Magazine, humans have been causing the Sierra Nevada mountains to rise. By withdrawing water for irrigation and other purposes, we have inadvertently removed water from the mountains, allowing them to uplift. The research shows a seasonal and annual cycle."
Re:How do they know man's actions cause this? (Score:5, Informative)
Unpublished? It's published right here: http://www.nature.com/nature/j... [nature.com]
So what data are they using to compare to the current data to determine this is caused by man's actions?
They looked at seasonal variations. If seasonal variations are causing a change in elevation, why wouldn't the volume of groundwater lost over the past century and a half also cause a change in elevation? In fact, when they compared the expected changes in elevation with the observed changes they got a pretty good match.
Like isostasy (Score:4, Informative)
This reminds me of isostasy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostasy/ [wikipedia.org] --as mountains erode, they rise again due to the buoyancy of the rock underneath them floating upon the magma below.
Pull out the mass of the water, and up go the mountains.
--PeterM