Beneath the high rises in downtown Chicago, the ground has been heating up significantly for decades. In some locations, the excessive heat is causing deformations in the land and destabilizing buildings, according to a study released Tuesday.
Beneath the high rises in downtown Chicago, the ground has been heating up significantly for decades. In some locations, the excessive heat is causing deformations in the land and destabilizing buildings, according to aScientists are calling this subsurface heating “underground climate change,” the counterpart of what people experience above ground. Except this subterranean warming is much more intense than above the surface, especially in densely built cities.
“Soils, rocks and concrete deform under temperature variation,” Rotta Loria said. “The overarching question was … what are the associated deformations and what is the impact of these deformations on the performance of city infrastructure.” . Air temperatures in underground structures were also up to 25 degrees Celsius warmer than undisturbed ground temperatures.After collecting measurements for three years, Rotta Loria then created a 3D computer simulation to study how the underground temperatures have grown since 1951 and also predict how they will continue to grow until 2051. He then looked at how that affected land movements.
“In other words, this implies that the worse [underground heating] has already happened,” Rotta Loria said. The model’s projections do not show major increases in warming rates to 2051. The warming also can affect structures above ground. The land contracted over soft, stiff clay layers but expanded at hard clay layers. Shallower and deeper sand layers and bottom limestone layers expanded as temperatures rose, as well.
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