See in detail what any part of the world will look like with incremental sea-rise as a result of global warming. You simply enter the amount - for example 3 feet, and Noah's Google Earth re-draws its entire planet view to reflect the change.
That's the easy bit. The exciting bit is zooming in to any particular city to see how much of it is now inundated. The really exciting bit is when you switch over to street view and see realistic simulations of water filling familiar streets and lapping half way up the walls of every building.
Turn up the effect even more to see entire low lying countries disappear, with the tallest of structures being left protruding through the water like isolated stalks.-- xenzag, Mar 06 2010 Pre-Noah Deluvian Times http://news.yahoo.c..._dinosaurs_asteroid [jurist, Mar 06 2010] Flood Map http://flood.firetree.net/ [xenzag, Mar 07 2010] Europe elevation map http://eusoils.jrc....ngs/altitude_a3.gifMostly quite high [nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010] North America http://www.sage.wis...l_elevation_nam.jpgFlorida would be gone, and some of the South [nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010] Vivaldi Google Earth Vivaldi_20Google_20Earth [xaviergisz, Mar 07 2010] National Oceanic and Atmospheric...-- nineteenthly, Mar 06 2010 Conversely, it might be equally interesting to see what the Earth might look like today if an asteroid had not impacted in the Gulf of Mexico 65.5 million years ago, introducing a global winter, changing tides and tidelines, and obliterating many species of prehistoric flora and fauna. <link>-- jurist, Mar 06 2010 I don't really buy the premise. Why not "global climate change map"? I don't see how a myth from a pre-global, non-seafaring society has any application in the scientific tools of the space age. Does anyone else see the conflict here?-- WcW, Mar 07 2010 I think you may be focussing too much on the title of the idea, [WcW], which of course i didn't do at all in my first anno.
The Arctic and Antarctic ice combined plus temperature rise leading to the expansion of water would result in a maximum sea level rise of about three hundred cubits, which wouldn't make the planet look very different on a global scale, but since many large cities and the smaller island nations are very close to water and at a low elevation, the fun would indeed be in the zooming in.
You could still do a Noah's Flood scenario for fun, but since the water was supposed to be fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, the result would just be a blue ball.-- nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010 Somewhere on this internet is a map of the earth in 1000 years showing what will be left after predicted sea level rises. It's pretty scary stuff. The eastern half of the US has gone, so has about 90% of Europe. central Asia looks like a fairly good bet. Then again - looking at the next 1000 years I think guesswork plays as much part as prediction. The only thing we can say for sure is that sea levels aren't going down.
If someone knows where this map is, could they link please?-- wagster, Mar 07 2010 That sounds very inaccurate to me. Assuming a ninety metre sea level rise, which would mean the loss of both ice caps, but not the thermal expansion of water (which takes it to one hundred and fifty metres maximum assuming Eocene temperatures - the highest in the Phanerozoic, when the polar ocean was warm), the low countries would be largely lost along with East Anglia, the Bay of Biscay, the Hanseatic League area, the Po Basin and bits of Moldova, but there's just no way that much would go. Most of the land is way over that elevation.-- nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010 I did a search and found this (see link) It's a bit "blocky" for my liking, but it is adjustable up to 14 metres (a meaningless measurement to me)-- xenzag, Mar 07 2010 Two links. The problem is that the low-lying areas are more densely populated, not the loss of land as such, and probably also the fertility of the land concerned. Polynesia, though, has big problems.
I think a seven metre sea level rise is more realistic. To be fair, Australia does seem to have a real problem.-- nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010 Except for the ritually pure animals, which would need to be zoomed in seven x seven.-- nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010 po basin gone? where would I wash my hair?-- po, Mar 07 2010 In the po shower?-- nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010 Yes. That would be something rather harder to implement, i think, since permafrost melting would lead to big pools of water in unpredictable places.-- nineteenthly, Mar 07 2010 random, halfbakery