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from the tracking-things-that-are-no-longer-there dept.
Throughout the western United States, a network of Global Positioning System (GPS) stations has been monitoring tiny movements in the Earth's crust, collecting data that can warn of developing earthquakes.
To their surprise, researchers have discovered that the GPS network has also been recording an entirely different phenomenon: the massive drying of the landscape caused by the drought that has intensified over much of the region since last year.
From the article:
Geophysicist Adrian Borsa of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and his colleagues report in this week's Science that, based on the GPS measurements, the loss of water from lakes, streams, snowpack, and groundwater totals some 240 billion metric tons—equivalent, they say, to a four-inch-deep layer of water covering the entire western U.S. from the Rockies to the Pacific."
The principle behind the new measurements is simple. The weight of surface water and groundwater deforms Earth's elastic crust, much as a sleeper's body deforms a mattress. Remove the water, and the crust rebounds.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Saturday August 23 2014, @03:35AM
I don't think all that water can be going into crops and lawns. It's probably leaking down the fault lines to lubricate the big quake that will finally send everything east of the San Andres fault into the Atlantic Ocean.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday August 23 2014, @04:20AM
It's probably leaking down the fault lines to lubricate the big quake that will finally send everything east of the San Andreas fault into the Atlantic Ocean.
I remember reading a short story about such a small technicality, east vs. west :-)
(Score: 3, Funny) by nyder on Saturday August 23 2014, @04:53AM
If you stop use Apple's Maps, you would probably find that the Pacific Ocean is off the west coast.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DECbot on Saturday August 23 2014, @05:50AM
And as I said, everything east will plunge into the Atlantic. Now, if you wish to dispute my claim and say everything west will plunge into the Pacific, well then we have an argument.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base