Study Findings: Drift of Earth’s Pole Confirms Groundwater Depletion as a Significant Contributor to Global Sea Level Rise 1993–2010

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Reto Stöckli, Nazmi El Saleous, and Marit Jentoft-Nilsen, NASA GSFC

Geophysical Research Letters (plain language) abstract:

Melting of polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers has been understood as a main cause of sea level rise associated with contemporary climate warming. It has been proposed that an important anthropogenic contribution is sea level rise due to groundwater depletion resulting from irrigation. A climate model estimate for the period 1993–2010 gives total groundwater depletion of 2,150 GTon, equivalent to global sea level rise of 6.24 mm. However, direct observational evidence supporting this estimate has been lacking. In this study, we show that the model estimate of water redistribution from aquifers to the oceans would result in a drift of Earth’s rotational pole, about 78.48 cm toward 64.16°E. In combination with other well-understood sources of water redistribution, such as melting of polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers, good agreement with PM observations serves as an independent confirmation of the groundwater depletion model estimate.

Citation: Ki-Weon Seo, Dongryeol Ryu, Jooyoung Eom, Taewhan Jeon, Jae-Seung Kim, Kookhyoun Youm, Jianli Chen, Clark R. Wilson. Drift of Earth’s Pole Confirms Groundwater Depletion as a Significant Contributor to Global Sea Level Rise 1993–2010. Geophysical Research Letters  (2023).
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo6192

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Note: We have been unintentionally terra-forming the Earth while looking at Mars and elsewhere to find candidates for intentional terra-forming. I believe we are learning that it is much easier to break a working system than create a new system from scratch.