Melting glaciers are adding so much extra water to the world's oceans that it is causing the ocean floor to sink, a new study has claimed. In fact, the effects of this sinking are so significant that it might have caused other scientists to miscalculate the rate at which ocean levels are rising. The study also seems to indicate that the effects of rising ocean levels could be far worse than what was previously thought.
According to NewsWeek, the theory about the ocean floor sinking was revealed by a group of scientists in a research journal published last month on the Wiley Online Library. The scientists involved in the study include Thomas Frederikse and Riccardo E. M. Riva from the Department of Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, and Matt A. King from Surveying and Spatial Sciences, School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania, Australia.
The study, which was published on December 23, 2017, claims that over the past 20 years, the ocean floor has sunk by an average of 0.004 inches per year. If the figures are correct, this means that the ocean floor is 0.08-inches deeper than it was 20 years ago. While these numbers might seem too small to cause any significant difference, what we need to keep in mind is that we are talking about a 0.004-inch difference each year for the past two decades over a large area of the planet. The world's oceans, as you might be aware, account for more than 70 percent of earth's surface area.
