Trends and Cooling and Warming and ... Weight???
Posted by B-Lowcountry on 7/30/2009, 11:44 pm
Another interesting point of fact (although, admittedly this doesn't explain this "instance") that I heard reported after Katrina - and focused mainly on NOLA - was something about NOLA (and a few other cities along the GC and along the Eastern Seaboard) were actually SINKING due to the weight of the city's infrastructure, sky rises, and housing tracts had on the underlying ground strata.

Looking at the Sealevel trends on the NOAA page (Thanks Cypress) jarred my memory about the report (I just wish I could remember WHERE I heard it).  

A great deal of the upward trending areas are cities set on previous marsh lands (NOLA, P-cola, Galveston, Tampa, Miami, Beaufort, Charleston, Norfolk, DC/BWI/PHL/NY/Boston Megaopolis, and up into Halifax). When we run out of land, we build UP.  "Up" adds weight, causes the land area to sink, and then causes a relative "rise" in sea levels.  

Before you laugh me off the reservation (I haven't left YET), consider Plate Tetonics; It moves Los Angeles northwest at ~26mm a year clip, so all of my aforementioned cities sinking at around 3-9mm a year seems feasible, IMHO.  

Also, this would also explain why Skagway, AK is downward trending....it sits on a subduction zone, so therefore the surrounding land is rising.

Let the laughing begin....


Greg
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Mysterious high tides - AlligatorPointer, 7/29/2009, 3:24 pm
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