The record rainfall from super typhoon Harvey curved the Earth's crust

Satellite data shows Earth's crust in Texas, USA, buckling two centimeters under the weight of 125,000 billion tons of super-storm rainwater Harvey poured down.

Super Hurricane Harvey is predicted to be one of the most devastating natural disasters in American history. Due to unusual dampness and particularly slow movement, the storm poured a total of 125,000 billion liters of rainwater into the United States , mainly in Texas, nearly four times the amount of rainfall in Katrina in 2005, according to IFL Science.

Harvey looks from the International Space Station.(Photo: NASA).

Last week, geologist scientist Chris Milliner of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the US Aeronautics and Aeronautics Agency (NASA) shared on Twitter a surprising map for many people. Satellite navigation points (GPS) along Houston show that the city has subsided a bit when it catches all the rain from super typhoon Harvey.

The rainfall is so large that the Earth's crust is sagged about two centimeters in a few days . This is really a remarkable number because it is not easy to bend the Earth's crust.

A simple calculation of The Atlantic indicated that rainfall from super typhoon Harvey weighed up to 125,000 billion tons, equivalent to the volume of 155,342 Golden Gate bridges and accounted for about 77% of the estimated total weight of Mount Everest.

If the Everest mountain is much higher, the Earth's crust will begin to sink. The water mountain that descended on Houston also caused the same effect, causing the ground to sag.

Satellite data shows the Earth's crust sagging two centimeters in Houston, Texas.(Photo: Twitter).

It has been suggested that the GPS measurement result may be due to the compaction of unbounded sandy soil submerged under water volume, but Milliner quickly dismissed it. According to the scientist, although the compaction of the soil may be a contributing factor, if the ground becomes tight and moves in the direction of emergence when the water recedes, his hypothesis will be confirmed.

Milliner also stressed that climate change is not the cause of thunderstorms, but this phenomenon certainly makes the storms become wetter and stronger.

1. Earth's crust
2. Strange structure beneath the Earth's crust