According to Associated Press release: The March 11 earthquake that hit eastern Japan was so powerful it pulled the entire country out and down into the sea. The mostly devastated coastal communities now face regular flooding, because of their lower elevation and damage to sea walls from the massive tsunamis triggered by the quake. People who thought they were high and dry now sit in the ocean. I think Japan now sits one catastrophe short of a doomsday prophecy.; i.e. California sinking into Pacific, etc.
Ooops...forgot the link if y'all want to read it: Quake shifted Japan; towns now flood at high tide - Yahoo! News
This will become commonplace around the world as the Greenland and Antarctic icecaps continue to melt. Netherlands and Venice engineers and architects won't be able to get off the phone (and if we're smart, we should start making those calls now).
There was an article in the local news just the other day, warning people to expect a one metre rise in sea level by the end of the century. Judging by some of the comments, convincing people of the need to build higher dikes will take longer than building them.
yes thats one big part of the problem! when new orleans flodded there where dutch company's wanting to help but where not allowed because US law predicts that only US workers and companys may do that! so a special permit was needed that took a lot of time and only came because after a way to long time the us discovered it could use some help way to long time inbetween... whats most important help your poeple or blinded keep your laws... laws are there to give direction not be plane stupid and yes i know its for protection of us economics and the work people but in that case it made no sence.
One meter drops were being mentioned by multiple news sources within a few days of the this quake. These drops exacerbated the problems from the already too-low flood walls. But Japan and California are not a single event away from falling into the ocean. Those will take many events over geological time. It has happened many times before, and it is an ongoing process all over the planet. These tectonic shifts, including their slow continuous cousins, are a reason that global sea level rise cannot be measured from a single location. Most locations are rising or falling from tectonic processes, and a few of them are moving faster than ocean itself. Some places would sink below the water even in the complete absence of changing sea level.
Fuzzy, I agree with what you're saying. To clarify, are you suggesting that rising sea levels are due solely to tectonic action and not melting glaciers? I guess I'm thinking both actions contribute to rising ocean levels.
Plate-edge crustal rebound... Right along the coast in Washington and Oregon are dead forests that are now several feet above sea level... those dead forests had to be above sea level before they went below sea level to be drowned and returned again for new growth to take a foothold. The Japanese coast within the influence of this ongoing series of events will continue to "settle" to a lower level than it was before in several places... some places may be more than several meters lower... other places on the island nation will be unaffected geologically...
There is an old thread about sea level rise in the environmental forum. Quick summary is that the present linear rate would result in about a .15 meter rise. If there are increased rates of warming, then the rise could be a big as 1 meter.
Actually, sea level rise may not be linear. Due to climate feedbacks, it may rise more quickly than it has in the past. Some researchers estimate that the sea level rise could be as much as two meters, or six feet. I think that the tectonic action in California and Japan are different. California will not sink, but move away from the continental US.
It's been doing that for the last century at least and at a rate that continues to accelerate. But you probably meant geologically.
