A new NASA study concludes global warming increases the amount of water stored underground which, in turn, slows the rate of sea level rise.
At a time when scientists are worried about accelerating sea level rise, NASA scientist John Reager and his colleagues found an extra 3,200 gigatons of water was being stored by parched landscapes from 2002 to 2014, slowing sea level rise by 15 percent.
“We always assumed that people’s increased reliance on groundwater for irrigation and consumption was resulting in a net transfer of water from the land to the ocean,” Reager said, according to AFP.
“What we didn’t realize until now is that over the past decade, changes in the global water cycle more than offset the losses that occurred from groundwater pumping, causing the land to act like a sponge — at least temporarily,” Reager said.