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Earth Science

Earth's Crust Is Shaking Less After Coronavirus Lockdowns (cnn.com) 45

Posted by EditorDavid from the whole-lot-less-shaking-going-on dept.
CNN reports: Around the world, seismologists are observing a lot less ambient seismic noise -- meaning, the vibrations generated by cars, trains, buses and people going about their daily lives. And in the absence of that noise, Earth's upper crust is moving just a little less.

Thomas Lecocq, a geologist and seismologist at the Royal Observatory in Belgium, first pointed out this phenomenon in Brussels. Brussels is seeing about a 30% to 50% reduction in ambient seismic noise since mid-March, around the time the country started implementing school and business closures and other social distancing measures, according to Lecocq. That noise level is on par with what seismologists would see on Christmas Day, he said. The reduction in noise has had a particularly interesting effect in Brussels: Lecocq and other seismologists are able to detect smaller earthquakes and other seismic events that certain seismic stations wouldn't have registered....

Paula Koelemeijer posted a graph on Twitter showing how noise in West London has been affected, with drops in the period after schools and social venues in the United Kingdom closed and again after a government lockdown was announced. Celeste Labedz, a PhD student at the California Institute of Technology, posted a graph showing an especially stark drop in Los Angeles.
The Belgian seismologist told CNN that the results suggested an inspiring message for humankind. "You feel like you're alone at home, but we can tell you that everyone is home. Everyone is doing the same. Everyone is respecting the rules."
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Earth's Crust Is Shaking Less After Coronavirus Lockdowns More

Earth's Crust Is Shaking Less After Coronavirus Lockdowns

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  • Make haste Jacques, we can finally prepare the soufflé!

  • Atmospheric scientists take note too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday April 05, 2020 @01:48PM (#59910908)
    The 1-week air travel shutdown in the U.S. after 9/11 provided valuable data how the atmosphere behaved in the absence of airliners injecting CO2 directly into the upper atmosphere (warming), and generating contrails which increased the planet's albedo and reflected more sunlight back into space (cooling). The overall conclusion was that the effect of the contrails outweighed the effect of the CO2, and that air travel was masking some of the global warming we should've been experiencing, by cooling the Earth.

    Well, now we've got a shutdown not only of air travel, but of practically all heavy industry. And not just in the U.S. but the entire world. And not just for 1 week but probably for several months. The next couple months will provide valuable real-world data on how the atmosphere behaves in alternate "what if" scenarios, rather than simulations.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 )
      Solandi, I don't think we can draw any solid conclusions about the effects or lack thereof on a system as large as the Earth from just one weeks' worth of data. You may well be right but we'd need to have no air travel to speak of for a considerably longer period of time, years or even decades, before getting a glimpse of any long-term effects.

    • Re:Atmospheric scientists take note too (Score:4, Interesting)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday April 05, 2020 @02:18PM (#59910992)

      There are already anecdotal reports of the massive difference when humans aren't polluting the planet. From New Delhi, India [9cache.com] to Jalandhar [imgur.com] India [imgur.com] (before and after) to the Yamuna river in India [9cache.com].

      Here are satellite imaging of the massive reduction in pollution. From China [imgur.com] and from China again [9cache.com], then from Italy [9cache.com]. Here is LA [9cache.com].

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

        While I have no doubt about the the positive effect of lockdowns against pollution, I suspect the dramatic difference seen in these pictures is mostly a result of weather conditions.
        Fog happens in the cleanest places, and its appearance, I think, depends more on how the camera is setup than on the amount of pollutants. Conversely, if the weather is dry and windy, you can have a nice, clear sky on a highly polluted city.

    • Shutdown of air travel? I just looked (22:19 GMT+1) at the Plane Finder app, and of the 3260 aircraft it shows currently in the sky for the entire planet, over 2500 of them were in US, compared to just 240 for the whole of Europe.

      Most of them aren't cargo planes.

  • Are they trying to make us believe that the Earth's crust moves because of human activity? Outside of things like fracking human activity does not make the earth's crust move. "Move" implies actual displacement or slippage. Sensational journalism again.

    • Even the first line of the summary basically just says "there's less human activity right now, so we're seeing less human-activity-related vibrations in the earth". It could have been re-written "I'm just going to be stating the obvious, but please read my article anyway".

      Who knows; perhaps the author is just feeling a little stir-crazy after being cooped up at home for a few weeks. Well, Mr. Author, buckle up - you've still got several weeks to go... Maybe you could write another article about how the mean

    • Re:"Earth's upper crust is moving just a little le (Score:4, Informative)

      by careysub ( 976506 ) on Sunday April 05, 2020 @03:26PM (#59911182)

      You are telling us that you believe the cones on your sound system speakers never move? Vibrations are movement.

  • Yet another good reason to keep the world's population in check.
    • I actually would tend to agree with you, but speaking about such things pokes at our two most basic biological drives with a stick: the drive to survive, and the drive to reproduce and propagate our species. Logic and reason tend to go out the window for most members of our species, and you get comments like "well maybe you should lead by example and kill yourself". So trying to have a rational discussion about the subject of population control on a scale larger than a small group tends to go nowhere, devol
      • How do you expect people to understand the concept of a condom when most of the world shits outside in fields and washes themselves with sand or dirty water?

        • ..most of the world..

          {Citation needed}
          Well gee friend maybe if we can manage to uplift people everywhere so nobody has to live like that anymore then maybe everyone at all levels will have a better life overall?

          • You literally just cited it!

            Did you mean you need verifiable evidence? And a line of reasoning, based on that, to check for validity?

            Or just brainlessly goosestepping with the Wikipedia scientifc method cargo cult, with no idea what that actually means?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kackle ( 910159 )
          That's better than sand-based condoms... Those work really well.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      You first. Now hold still...

  • Belgium, London, Paris, NYC - the streets ain't shakin' like they use to.
    But most of the earth is covered by water so there's no change there. And I bet if they take seismographic readings in the "fewer than 100 persons per square mile" areas, which includes most of the dry crust of the earth, there won't be any change.
    So, in my often wrong opinion, this "Earth's Crust Is Shaking Less" thing only applies to a small percentage of the earth's crust.

  • Nice (Score:2)

    by jovius ( 974690 )

    It definitely has felt steadier these days.

  • See see see! We are saving the planet by NOT DOING ANYTHING.
  • What would be really devastating would be an earthquake, e.g. in Italy or California, that would drive people in lockdown out on the streets infecting each other.

  • I am observing, and concluding, and acting accordingy.

    Aka I am a person.

    It just so happens, that we agreed to it, since we concluded the same.

    To shift that towards a world of blind obedience of declared rules, is pushing it towards totalitarian rule and people being livestock.
    Like all the totalitarian assholes that crawl out of their holes right now.

    And that is a crime in my book.

    • As always, we have to find the sensible middle ground, no? If people want to live together in a society with other people it is not possible to just allow everybody to act on their own conclusions alone. Unless that includes reasoning like "if I do X the others will put me in jail, so I don't do X". Somebody who doesn't accept that society should create any rules is either an antisocial sociopath (is that redundant? ;-)) or has such a good and naive heart that he is incomparable to the majority of people ar

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      I take it you've never read a YouTube comment thread on any video dealing with scientific subjects. Most people are apparently dumber than most livestock.

  • Wow the humans really are something, if only they could that that sort of impact on the universe and use it to explore and learn the lessons it has to teach.

  • That's actually bad. More tectonic stress (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That's actually bad. More tectonic stress is building and waiting for a release instead of being released regularly. Like regular brush fires prevent big wild fires.
  • We've been having earthquakes here for a couple weeks now.

  • Is less fracking going on, with the reduced demand for oil?

    That of itself should lower the seismic activity quite nicely, was my first thought going over this submission.

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