Q http://www.theguardian.com/environm...as-sea-levels-rise-the-city-itself-is-sinking A rising tide eats into the sand at Cottesloe beach in Perth, Western Australia. The city is sinking at rates of up to 6mm a year as rising demand for water empties the underlying acquifers. Photograph: Michael Willis / Alamy/Alamy Calla Wahlquist Thursday 22 October 2015 16.17 AEDT Last modified on Friday 23 October 2015 00.20 AEDT Growing demand for water in Perth has caused the city to sink at up to 6mm a year and could be responsible for an apparent acceleration in the rate of sea level rise, according to new research released by Curtin University. UQ
Q Tue Oct 20, 2015 3:09am EDT Related: Environment, Global Energy News Dalai Lama says climate change destroying Tibet's 'roof of the world' http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/20/us-tibet-climatechange-idUSKCN0SE0J820151020 About 80 percent of the ice in Tibet has retreated in the past 50 years, according to the government-in-exile. With the rapidly melting permafrost, 12,300 million tons of carbon could be released into the air, further exacerbating the problems of global warming, they said. UQ
Climate change will offer a unique opportunity for those who always wanted to own a mountain top waterfront property.
What is 6mm? Is that like 6 double million? Over here we measure sea level in feet. Denver use to be about 5,280 feet above sea level. That's why they called it mile high.
Q The mystery of why Denver is a MILE above sea level solved: Researchers say water is key to massive rise of tectonic plates http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2994105/At-theory-Denver-mile-sea-level.html Geologists may finally be able to explain why Denver, the Mile High City, is a mile high: water. A new theory suggests that chemical reactions, triggered by water far below the Earth's surface, could have made part of the North American plate less dense many millions of years ago, when the continents we know today were still forming. Because plates float on the Earth's mantle, parts of the Western United States might have risen, like an empty boat next to one with a heavy cargo, pushing the vast High Plains far above sea level. Colorado researchers say chemical reactions, triggered by water far below the Earth's surface, could have made part of the North American plate less dense many millions of years ago. causing the area to rise a mile high. Colorado researchers say chemical reactions, triggered by water far below the Earth's surface, could have made part of the North American plate less dense many millions of years ago. causing the area to rise a mile high. The new theory has been formulated by geologists Craig Jones and Kevin Mahan at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Their work appeared last week on the website of the journal Geology, and is a big deal for Denver, where the 5,280-foot elevation is a point of pride and a big part of the city's identity. At Coors Field, where the Colorado Rockies play baseball, a single row of purple seats interrupts about 50,000 green ones, marking the mile-high line in the grandstand. Geologists have long been puzzled by how the High Plains could be so big, so high and so smooth. The plains descend gently from roughly 6,000 feet to 2,000 feet above sea level as they stretch for thousands of square miles, from the Texas Panhandle to southern Montana, and from western Kansas to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. It's well established that much of the West was still at sea level 70 million years ago, and that tectonic shifts don't fully explain the High Plains' altitude. The lifting began long after the ancient Farallon oceanic plate was shoved deep under a vast part of western North America and then settled into the planet's molten center over millions of years. Why? 'Crustal hydration,' Jones and Mahan theorize. At Coors Field, where the Colorado Rockies play baseball, a single row of purple seats interrupts about 50,000 green ones, marking the mile-high line in the grandstand. At Coors Field, where the Colorado Rockies play baseball, a single row of purple seats interrupts about 50,000 green ones, marking the mile-high line in the grandstand. They suggest that water that had been locked in minerals in the Farallon plate was released because of pressure from the overlying rock and heat emanating from the Earth's core. The water then rose into the continental plate, setting off chemical reactions that turned garnet and other dense rock into mica and other less heavy rock, making vast areas of the crust lighter. Jones said the Earth's crust under the High Plains 'floats higher' over magma, much like a plank of buoyant balsa wood rises higher in the water than a plank of dense pine. The reason crustal hydration happened where and when it did has to do with how steeply the oceanic plate descended, Jones said. At some point, the angle at which the plate was descending became shallower, enabling the released water to rise for reasons that remain unclear, he said. Few geological formations appear so uniform on such a vast scale as the High Plains — the only other known location in the world that's similar is in southern Africa, Jones said. The high plains descend gently from roughly 6,000 feet to 2,000 feet above sea level as they stretch for thousands of square miles, from the Texas Panhandle to southern Montana, and from western Kansas to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado (pictured). The high plains descend gently from roughly 6,000 feet to 2,000 feet above sea level as they stretch for thousands of square miles, from the Texas Panhandle to southern Montana, and from western Kansas to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado (pictured). The prevailing theory there is different, involving heat rising from below that may be causing the surface to expand and become more buoyant, Mahan said. The composition of rocks found in the High Plains is strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis, Jones said, but it needs more testing, and that was one reason for publishing it. 'Do we think this is 'the' answer? No. Could it be 'an' answer? I suppose it's possible,' said Jones, who is also a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a partnership of CU and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The theory has merit, according to Ken Dueker, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Wyoming. 'It's a plausible hypothesis that has some data to support it,' said Dueker, who was not part of the team that devised it. One unanswered question, which Jones and Mahan raised in the journal Geography, is what channeled the water up into the North American plate, Dueker said. The Farallon plate also helped form the Rocky Mountains just west of Denver, which soar as high as 14,433 feet. As it moved under the continent, friction caused the North American plate above to compress horizontally, like a rug that bunches up if a foot is dragged across it, geologists say. Cracks opened from that horizontal pressure, and one side was shoved higher than the other, creating the Rockies. Not knowing why Denver is a mile high is a little awkward for Colorado geologists. Jones recalls having to tell a British TV producer a few years ago that he couldn't explain it. 'We probably need to figure this one out, guys, because it's kind of embarrassing,' Jones said. UQ
Some say the Rockies are the oldest mountains in the world and the Himalayas are relatively new. If we don't do something soon, they will all sink just like Perth.