The drought that is affecting the western part of the United States is also reportedly making some of the mountains in California grow slightly taller. Researchers from the United States Geological Survey, working with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego have estimated that 63 trillion gallons of groundwater has been lost since 2013.
The drought that is affecting the western part of the United States is also reportedly making some of the mountains in California grow slightly taller.
Researchers from the United States Geological Survey, working with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego have estimated that 63 trillion gallons of groundwater has been lost since 2013.
That is close to the same amount of water that melts from the icecaps in Greenland every year.
The study also says that this amount of water loss has caused some of the mountains in California to rise by more than half an inch over the past 18 months.
This change was measured by global positioning system stations at the National Science Foundation’s Plate Boundary Observatory.
Co-author of the study Duncan Agnew, professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is quoted as saying: “We found that it’s most severe in California, particularly in the Sierras. It’s predominantly in the Coast Ranges and the Sierras showing the most uplift, and hence, that’s where we believe is the largest water loss.”
Mountains grow larger when there is less groundwater because the pressure from the water is released, causing the land to expand like a spring.
