Glaciers are still melting, but climate change is having an unexpected effect on sea levels, NASA has found. Satellites show 3.2 trillion tons of water has been stored on land over the past decade, slowing the pace of rising sea levels by 20 percent.
Never before has the climate and weather-driven impact on water storage been so accurately studied. With the help of two satellites, the University of California at Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) determined that through lakes, aquifers, and other routes, land is practically soaking up the liquid like a giant sponge. The study is set to be published on Friday in the journal Science.
Enough water to fill Lake Huron, the seventh largest lake in the world, has been trapped, according to NASA. Before this study, researchers could only faintly guess at how the natural water cycle, or hydrologic cycle, would be impacted by climate change.
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- February 13, 2016 8:16 am
