Apparently so. Areas along the Fraser River are reportedly subsiding from Vancouver International Airport as far upriver as Maple Ridge.
The communities along the Fraser Delta, including Richmond, a city of nearly 200,000, are sitting on soft land, often below sea level. Some of those lands have been found to be sinking under their own weight.
Melting sea ice is predicted to cause sea level rises of about 1.6 mm. annually. However the Fraser River communities are also subsiding at the average rate of 2 mm. per year. It doesn't sound like much but, as we tell our kids to get them to put their allowance into savings, after several years it sure adds up. In areas of heavier development the subsidence has been recorded at 5 mm. annually.
Two sites of particular interest to researchers are Vancouver International Airport, parked atop low-lying Lulu Island, and the BC Ferries' Tsawwassen terminal and the Roberts Bank coal port.
I've always maintained that the Vancouver/Fraser Valley region is dangerously over-developed. Several years ago, when the population was significantly smaller than it is today, a federal government study found that area had exceeded by several times its environmentally sustainable population limits.
2 comments:
Melting sea ice is predicted to cause sea level rises of about 1.6 mm. annually.
Uh huh. A little science lesson is in order. Floating sea ice displaces precisely the same amount of water that it cointains if melted. Thus it makes no difference to sea levels if sea ice melts or not.
Melting land ice (Antarctica or Geenland) can raise sea levels, but melting sea ice can't.
Bunny, my hat's off. You're right about sea ice, in part. What you've missed is the gravitational mass issue but that's pretty advanced. Nonetheless (and that's how lawyers spell that word), sea levels from melting ice packs are expected to rise 1.6 mm. annually.
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