Crustal response to heavy rains in Southwest Japan 2017-2020

HEKI Kosuke

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Dec. 08, 2021

Press release (in Japanese)

Highlights

• Heavy rains in Southwest Japan in 2017-2020 summer made GNSS stations subside.
• Rainwater loads of 1 Gt cause volumetric crustal subsidence of ∼0.1 km³.
• Linearity breaks down if rain exceeds the water-holding capacity of forest catchments.

Abstract
Weather fronts stationary above Southwest Japan often bring disastrous heavy rains in early summer. Here we study four such episodes in each of four summers between 2017 and 2020, and investigate transient lithospheric subsidence caused by rainwater loads using the daily coordinates of a dense network of continuous GNSS stations. After applying…..

Read the original article on Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Article information:
Kosuke Heki, Syachrul Arief,
Crustal response to heavy rains in Southwest Japan 2017-2020,
Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 578, 2022, 117325, ISSN 0012-821X.
DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2021.117325