The Ocean Floor Is Sinking Under The Water Weight From Melting Glaciers, And It’s As Bad As It Sounds
So much extra water is being added into the world’s oceans from melting glaciers that the ocean floor is sinking underneath its increasing weight. This ocean floor deformation also means we have miscalculated just how much ocean levels are rising and the problem could be far worse than previously believed.
Over the past 20 years, ocean basins have sunk an average of 0.004 inches per year. This means that the ocean is 0.08 inches deeper than it was two decades ago. While this small fragment of an inch may not seem much, oceans cover 70 percent of our planet, making the problem bigger than it seems at an initial glance.
In a study published online in Geophysical Research Levels , researchers explain how they used a mathematical equation known as the elastic sea level equation to more accurately measure the ocean floor. This allowed them to see how much the bottom of the ocean floor has changed from 1993 to 2014. While they are not the first scientists to look at the ocean floor, this is the first time that researchers have taken into account how additional water from melted ice may have further stretched the ocean floor, LiveScience reported.
The results show that the ocean is changing in ways that we previously did not realize and is sinking further into the earth’s crust. As a result, scientists have underestimated how much sea levels are rising by as much as 8 percent. The study concludes by emphasizing that future sea level measurement should take ocean floor deformation into account in order to more accurately understand how our oceans are changing.
All the water on the planet today is all the water that has ever existed on the planet, but not all water is in its liquid form. Recently, rising temperatures have caused much of the frozen water on the planet’s glaciers to melt and join the ocean as liquid. This mass melting ice rising sea levels, a problem whose consequences we’re already starting to see. The first to notice the repercussions of rising sea levels are those who live in coastal areas. Rising waters mean less land to live on. In addition, more water in the ocean means that ocean storms, such as hurricanes, have the potential to be stronger and more devastating, National Geographic reported.
Small coastal areas won’t be the only ones to disappear due to rising waters and if current estimates are correct, by 2100 the ocean will rise between 11 and 38 inches, a number that could mean that much of the U.S. east coast will be covered in water, National Geographic reported.
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Chicken Little, the Oceans are sinking.
Soooo.....that's the excuse on why the Oceans haven't swallowed up Miami yet .... with all this extra water we have now that is.
If they are sinking, where is the floor going....we live on a round(-ish) ball. Either that or its compressing......wouldn't that cause volcanic eruptions from the compressed magma core? And how does the water rise to envelope the east coast if the oceans continue to get deeper?
Don't ya love it when they claim distress for only certain costs, depending on the blowing winds. I suppose they are looking for the coast that will have the most distressed folks to make their ridicules point.
It's like the oceans rising are going to be choosey ! Choosey oceans choose the U.S. east coast ! The west coast is safe !
In addition, more water in the ocean means that ocean storms, such as hurricanes, have the potential to be stronger and more devastating, National Geographic reported.
I would like them to explain that one, since hurricane strength depends on ocean surface temperatures more than anything else. Glad I live in mile high Denver in a high rise.
The area around the Great Lakes sank during the last Ice Age from all the weight and after it was over it started rising again and is still rising to this day.
how much? They always just throw crap out there. Too bad so sad...all the east coast snobs will loose their beach front mansions.
I don't know what effect additional melting water will have on the ocean floor. But what about the regions where the glaciers are melting? Wouldn't they be springing upwards? Sort of a see-saw kind of thing? Years ago, we studied that the Ozark mountains are there because of the weight of the sediments in the Gulf. It's sort of like sitting on an old mattress with the metal bedspring. If you sit on one side-- squishing it, the other side springs up.
What do y'all think?
Personally, there is nothing I can do about it, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. Mankind has survived 3 periods of glaciation, loss of coastline, flooding, etc. before. We'll survive it again. Or not.
Sorry that none of you have the education to understand the sciences involved or the ramifications of AGW.
The land and mountains that glaciers are melting from are gaining elevation. It's called postglacial rebound. But those sneaky scientists tend to hide those secret facts in things called books and computers.
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph] Seems like it is a full time thing for you.
The "they" you're unwittingly referring to were a handful of pop-culture writers, not the climatologists who studied the actual trend of AGW. And you're just perpetuating an unscientific myth.
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More here about the "global cooling" myth and the uninformed folks who perpetuate it:
Last I heard Time is a pop culture mag not a scientific journal much less a journal about climatology. You might want to find better sources.
To wit:
"During the last glacial period , much of northern Europe , Asia , North America , Greenland and Antarctica was covered by ice sheets . The ice was as thick as three kilometres during the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago. The enormous weight of this ice caused the surface of the Earth 's crust to deform and warp downward, forcing the viscoelastic mantle material to flow away from the loaded region. At the end of each glacial period when the glaciers retreated, the removal of the weight from the depressed land led to slow (and still ongoing) uplift or rebound of the land and the return flow of mantle material back under the deglaciated area. Due to the extreme viscosity of the mantle, it will take many thousands of years for the land to reach an equilibrium level."
But melting glaciers are NOT causiing the sea bottoms to sink
As an environmental scientist yes it is a full time job.
That will be your little secret.
What?!
Yeah, it's a thing... We studied it in geology, which was 45 years ago...
I hope you realize that this is a fossil fuel industry propaganda piece with absolutely no science involved.
Steve Goreham is a long time Heartland Institute shill and paid climate denier with no scientific training. His oil-soaked crap denier books were thoroughly debunked many years ago.
The climate change debate is like a condominium owner who notices drops of water forming on his ceiling and dripping causing damage to his rugs and furniture. When he theorizes that it's likely the unit above who has a broken pipe, the owners above reject his claims because it would cost them a lot of money if it were proved true and they had to open their walls and fix the leaky pipe. They demand the unit owner below hire scientists to check the moisture levels in the home claiming it's just condensation. They claim it might be the owners kids squirting water on the ceiling. They claim it might be an image of the virgin Mary that is weeping, anything to divert attention away from their own habits and likely plumbing problems. They only want to listen to the "experts" they hired which downplay any possibility that it's their fault.
The dirty fossil fuel industry and their workers do the same and have massive propaganda efforts teaching the poorly educated that they're not the problem and that climate change happens anyway, so burning coal, dumping toxins into our groundwater for fracking, setting up thousands of miles of oil pipelines that regularly leak into our environment, none of those have any effect on our environment despite the mountains of evidence they do, because if we understood the truth, they'd lose money, they would have to change their dirty habits and the workers would have top get retrained to work in renewable energy fields. They will do anything to divert attention from the real issue of mans effect on global climate change, anything to shirk responsibility for the mess they've made.
geologists certainly invent words for things... I'm thinking fossiliferous, etc.
All liberal propaganda.
All liberal propaganda?
WTF?
Yes, that’s right. All liberal propaganda.
So glad I live in the middle of the Sonora Desert in SE AZ at 4,000+ feet above sea level!
ya got to be kidding me.... LOL
the earth has been warmer and colder than it is today many times, meaning the bottom of the ocean has been going up and down for eons to compensate for the natural climate changes we are talking about.
or... does anyone care to suggest this is the very first time ever in the history of ever?
obviously that question was rhetorical but hey, thanks for the laugh folks
The magnetic fields have reversed polarity several times as well, of course surviving the half way point is quite problematic, but don't worry it's just fake news you will be ok.
But if we end capitalism as we know it on this planet, have a one world government dictate our political, personal, and economic choices for us, give up our thermostats, cars, guns, and especially religion, we may just be able to save ourselves from environmental catastrophe. /s
.004 inches is roughly the thickness of a human hair.
Now, I’m not a fancy environmental scientist, but you’d think if we can reliably measure the ocean floor with that level of precision....it would be easy to find something the size of a Boeing 777 when on goes missing.
A good point, Skirting the CoC [ph]
I was thinking along similar lines when I read this statement... And then, I realized that my husband can't look inside the refrigerator and find the butter, despite it being in the section of the door, labeled "Butter". So, maybe we're not looking in the right place?