This Idea is for all those people being derided as "trailer park trash" simply because they don't live in a fancy house. All each such homeowner need do is apply the Mobile Home Houseboat Conversion Kit, and wait for Global Warming to raise the sea level by 60-odd meters. The trailer owners will then have the last laugh, as they gently float above the waterlogged and ruined remains of all those fancy houses.
-- Vernon, Oct 15 2013

like this? http://relaxshax.fi...eboat-hillbilly.jpg
[xandram, Oct 16 2013]

Since I live over one thousand feet above sea level and it'll be a long time before they're tying up at my front gate, [+]
-- Alterother, Oct 15 2013


//This Idea is for all those people being derided as "trailer park trash" simply because they don't live in a fancy house.//

I resent the implication that I deride people simply because they can't afford a fancy house. I deride them for so many more reasons than that.

Seal evils have risen quite steadily by about 2mm per year over the last 200 years, which would imply that a 60 metre rise will happen by about August of 32103. I strongly suspect that most of the leases on mobile home plots will be due for renewal before then.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 15 2013


I would be happy to be a house guest at your postdeluvian hovel, provided that the Seal Evils aren't too much of a problem.
-- Laughs Last, Oct 15 2013


[MaxwellBuchanan], I haven't implied at all that you were one of those who derided people living in mobile homes. And, regardless of whether or not there are multiple rationales for such derision, only one of those rationales needed to be pointed out for this Idea.

Regarding the rate of sea level rise, it is not necessarily wise to assume the trend you described will continue at exactly the same rate. After all, the warmer things get, the FASTER ice melts....
-- Vernon, Oct 16 2013


Remember to pack your doves. Although it may be true that ice will melt and enter the oceans and be evaporated more quickly by the generally warmer atmosphere. I am not sure albedo nly one trying to correct that problem. May take a few centuries though.
-- 4whom, Oct 16 2013


[21Quest], the icecap covering Greenland is (or was) two miles thick in places (a little more than 3 kilometers). All of it will contribute to sea-level rise. And most of the ice in Antarctica is located on land, not sea. I once read a science-fiction story that included some stuff about the West Antarctica Ice Sheet; in the story it slid off the continent and immediately raised sea level by 18 meters or so... The 60 meters I mentioned in the main text here is what is believed to be probable, after all the ice-over-land melts.
-- Vernon, Oct 16 2013


No, you aren't missing anything except the fact that the dudes who figured a 60+meter sea level rise have already taken it into account; they are talking about the effect of ice that is currently not floating on the sea.
-- Vernon, Oct 16 2013


Meh, most sea level rise isn't ice melt anyway.

Water expands as it gets warmer, just like most materials. The amount varies with pressure, but it's somewhere around 52e-6/K. So a meter of sea water only expands 52 micrometers per degree Celsius increase, but the 10km Challenger deep adds half a meter for the same increase.
-- MechE, Oct 16 2013


Would anyone care to guess the amount by which the coverage of the arctic ice cap has changed in the last year?

It has changed by just over 500,000 square miles since 2012.

If anyone thinks that's a warning sign, I have an additional fact for them.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 16 2013


It's grown, hasn't it?
-- Alterother, Oct 16 2013


Yes. By about 30% compared to 2012.

No doubt a 30% growth in ice cover is a sign of the disturbance of the ocean currents due to global warming, in contrast to a 30% loss which would be a sure sign of global warming. Except it hasn't been 'global warming' for a long time and is now 'climate change', which explains why the last few winters have been amongst the coldest in recent memory, and why winter 2013/14 is set to be particularly harsh.

We ought to be capitalizing on this new physics. Now that warming can make things colder, whole new energy cycles become possible.

98% of climate scientists support the notion of global warming, in much the same way that 98% of mycologists would support the idea that the greatest threat facing mankind is killer fungi.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 16 2013


[MaxwellBuchanan], there is another factor besides all that CO2 (and methane) that humans have caused to be added to the atmosphere. This factor is the Ice Age Cycle. In terms of planetary orbital cycles, eccentricity changes, axial tilt precession and degree-changes, etc. the Earth is about "due" to exit the last InterGlacial Period (which is what most climate has been like for the past 10-15 thousand years or so.

The anthropogenic aspect of Global Warming is real, and it may be the only thing keeping us from entering another Ice Age. Lucky us. Except, of course, anything that can be done can also be over-done. We shall see, which way the Global Thermal Balance ultimately tips....
-- Vernon, Oct 16 2013


Max, you are mature enough to recognize that attempting to map a trend by comparing one year's data point, (and a particularly oddly wintered one, that is) is disingenuous.
-- RayfordSteele, Oct 17 2013


Want a house boat build a house boat.

Mobile homes are designed to have say 18 inches of dead dry air beneath them. Won't be there in any conversion.

The metal frame they are built on will rust if parked next to ocean. Floating on top just means more rust faster.

Plastics and insulation and fiberboard and the cheapest available appliances. Doors and cupboards opening and closing with each wave.

In six months the movement and salt will make the place unlivable.

toilets and showers ha ha
-- popbottle, Oct 18 2013


[+] trailers are pretty well naturals for a nautical conversion: standard'ish width and lengths; the unaerodynamic shape non-sequitur at water speeds; the bit underneath a good place for a fuel tank, perhaps an engine. The width limitations for a road-going vehicle compared to a lakecraft means there can be a surrounding walkway.
-- FlyingToaster, Oct 18 2013


So, it's like the Kraken Wakes, but with trailers?
-- not_morrison_rm, Oct 18 2013


Add to all of this the natural tendency for tornadoes to seek them out, and we'll have a great time.
-- normzone, Oct 18 2013


//Max, you are mature enough to recognize that attempting to map a trend by comparing one year's data point, (and a particularly oddly wintered one, that is) is disingenuous.//

You're quite right, and I was being disingenuous. I should take as my guide the IPCC (actually its forerunner), under whose auspices a statement was made in 1998 that a rise in mean global temperatures of greater than 0.2°C over the next decade would be a sure sign that predictions of global warming were essentially correct.

Or, I could instead take as my guide a statement issued a few weeks ago that global warming could only be reliably detected by monitoring temperatures over a period of at least 25 years. This statement was made in response to the quietly-released finding that there has been no net increase whatsoever in mean global temperatures over the last 15 years.

Incidentally, the phrase "climate change denier" has gained considerable currency of late. It is interesting that this distinctive term for anyone holding a different scientific opinion has been closely modelled on a phrase applied to right-wing morons who deny the existence of the holocaust.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 18 2013


specific heat of water 4.2 J/g
enthalpy of fusion of water 334 J/g

Or, if you want clues, ice at 0C melting to water at 0C is the equivalent of an 80 degree Celsius increase.

When you put ice into your drink it will keep your drink at a consistent'ish 4-5C until it melts

After the ice melts what happens ? how fast does it happen ?

Polar ice cap measurements go back 150 years.
-- FlyingToaster, Oct 18 2013



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