Washington DC sinking, sea-level rise threat looms
Washington:
PTI
Scientists have found that land under the Chesapeake Bay , the largest estuary in the US, is sinking rapidly and the country's capital, Washington DC, could drop by six or more inches by 2100, adding to the problems of sea-level rise. The falling land will exacerbate the flooding that Washington DC faces from rising ocean waters due to a warming climate and melting ice sheets, researchers said.
For 60 years, tide gauges have shown that sea level in the Chesapeake is rising at twice the global average rate and faster than elsewhere on the East Coast. Geologists have hypothesized for several decades that land in this area, pushed up by the weight of a pre-historic ice sheet to the north, has been settling back down since the ice melted, a phenomenon which the geologists call “forbulge collapse“.
The new study , based on extensive drilling in the coastal plain of Maryland, done by a team of geologists from the University of Vermont and the US Geological Survey also revealed that the phenomenon is not primarily driven by human influence, but is a long-term geological process that will continue unabated for tens of thousands of years, independent from human land use or climate change, researchers said.
Ben DeJong, lead author on the research, said the the region today is early in a period of land subsidence that will last for millennia.
