Sea level forecasts in California may be far away – thanks for sinking land

The increase and sinking of land in California may affect the sea level in the state in the coming decades, according to an analysis by researchers at the NASA Jewish Motor Laboratory.

Researchers have studied satellite radar data to capture the vertical movement of the Earth more than a thousand miles (1610 kilometers) on the California coast. Comparing this data with historical observations in the same places, the team found that the land was subsided and growing at levels much higher than regional evaluations.

Team research –published Last month in science, it progresses-it dispersed the amount of surface movement on Earth, using data from the satellites of the European space agency of Sentinel-1 and the ground receiving stations that are part of the world navigation satellite system. The data were collected between 2015 and 2023 and shows how different areas throughout the country increase and sink. In the image below the zones in blue, while the areas in red rise (the worse the red, the faster the lift).

According to NASA JPL, the San Francisco Bay area expires at a speed of more than 0.4 inches (10 millimeters) per year, to a large extent due to seal seal. The team positions in the study that local marine levels can rise by more than 17 inches (45 cm) by 2050. Due to the descent, at least in the lowest parts of San Rafael, Corte Madera, Fosti City and Bay Farm Island and Farm Island.

“In many parts of the world, like the regenerated land under San Francisco, the Earth is moving faster than the sea itself goes up,” says Marin Spewsin, a NASA JPL scientist and a lead author of the study, at an agency releaseS

The team also found hot lifting points (a few millimeters a year) in the Santa Barbara and Long Beach underground water pool.

In parts of the cities of LA and San Diego, the team has found proof that human drivers of the Earth movement increase the uncertainty in sea level projections by up to 15 inches (40 cm); Human activities, including the extraction of groundwater and the production of hydrocarbons, make it difficult to predict the movement of the Earth.

Meanwhile, the team observes movement down in landslide ground areas, such as Green sticks on a peninsula To the south of Los Angeles.

Future observations of changes to the elevation in North America will be supported by the JPL operation project (the monitoring products for end users by remote monitoring analysis). In tandem with the NISAR mission, a joint effort between NASA and the Isro Indian Space Agency, Opera will collect data on the rise of North America, ensuring that the ever -changing surface of our continent can be carefully monitored.