Hurricane Harvey's Floodwaters Were So Extreme That They Warped Earth's Crust

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Hurricane Harvey seen from the ISS. Randy Bresnik/NASA

BY ROBIN ANDREWS 18 SEP 2017, 15:54
Hurricane Harvey is set to be one of the costliest natural disasters in American history. It was both
unusually wet and extremely slow, and as a result, it dumped a whopping 125 trillion liters (33
trillion gallons) of rain on the US, mostly on Texas more than four times that unleashed by 2005s
Katrina.

Last week, geoscientist Chris Milliner of NASAS Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) sent out a tweet
that contained a rather startling map. As various GPS markers across Houston have revealed, the
city actually sank a little as Harvey dumped all of its precipitation on the unfortunate city.

Of course, a lot of the metropolis was underwater, but this isnt quite what we mean here. There
was actually so much rainfall that the Earths crust itself was depressed by around two centimeters
(about 0.8 inches) for a few days. That may not sound like much until you remember that warping
the surface of the planet isnt actually easy.

A simple calculation by The Atlantic suggests around 125 gigatonnes (275 trillion pounds) of water
fell from the sky back then. Thats a difficult number to envisage, so lets just say that the water
weighed the same as 155,342 Golden Gate Bridges. Its about the same as 77 percent of the total
estimated mass of Mount Everest.

Mount Everest, by the way, cannot get much taller. If it did, the crust beneath it would begin to sink
in response. So its safe to say that a veritable mountain of water landing mostly on Houston had
the same effect, except in this case, the land was forced downwards.
 Chris Milliner @Geo_GIF Follow

GPS data show #Harveyflood was so large it flexed Earth's

crust, pushing #Houston down by ~2
cm! #EarthScience#HurricaneHarvey #txflood
3:49 PM - Sep 4, 2017
310 10,406 9,220

Someone asked Milliner if the GPS reading was simply due to the compaction of unconsolidated,
sandy soil that was simply sinking under the weight of the water. Not so, says the scientist: The
subsidence is beyond noise level. Although some soil compaction may be a factor here, if the
ground rebounds and moves upwards again as the waters recede that will confirm the crustal
warping theory.

Another person asked Milliner about climate change. As weve previously reported here, climate
change doesnt cause hurricanes, but it certainly makes them wetter and more powerful. Thus, its
safe to say that Harveys record-breaking rainfall was worse than it should have been.

In response to the query, Milliner says: Unfortunately, [climate change] is very real. You dont have
to believe politicians, just look at the data and science.