This came to me whilst washing up this morning.
Now the problem, as I understand it, is that the ice caps, which are out of the water, are melting, and hence relocating to 'In' the water. Actually, that doesn't quite make sense, because they 'are' the water, but i think you know what I mean. Whatever, the water level is rising.
Anyhooooo...
So, imagine please, a glass submerged underwater. Now imagine turning the glass upside down and lifting the bottom part out of the water. The water stays inside the upside-down glass. I hope this is making sense.
Now if we erected a few of these about the place, they would act like artificial ice caps, relocating some of the water to 'outside' the water (again, that's not making sense, but let's just go with it). They wouldn't necessarily need to be in the arctic, because logically wherever they were would lower the sea level. Therefore, it could be in relatively shallow water, making them cheap and easy to construct, with just a few props to support them.
It could be paid for by the Netherlands, which, whilst searching global warming on here, I found out will be below sea level in 2030.-- daaisy, Mar 27 2006 Netherlands, MFD 2030 Bring_20Water_20to_..._20Pole_20Ice_20Cap [daaisy, Mar 27 2006] A few big plastic domey things and some stilts popped along the coastline. Probably less than it would take to evacuate and rehouse all of the Netherlands.
I don't expect it's so much of a worry in Oz; it's not like there's a shortage of space for you all to move inland slightly. But if Amsterdam ends up under the sea, where will all us Brits go for our Stag parties!? Disaster!!-- daaisy, Mar 27 2006 Let us assume for the sake of argument that the largest practical dome that can be built is 1/2 km in diameter(i suspect it is much smaller than that) let us also assume that such a dome could support itself under a full vacuum(Which it could not using any exisiting technology) Then you would require more than 10,000 domes if each were to hold 2 meters of water above sea level. Each dome would hold about 1.6 million Cubic Meters of Water, at 1.6 Billion kg. This would need to be supported by the dome structure.
This setup would hold enough water to account for the 1/2 of the neatherlands that is within 1 meter of sea level.
To recapture the estimated average rise in sea level in the next 90 years of 1/2 meter you would need to store away 180 Trillion Cubic Meters of water weighing 180 Quadrillion kg. Just for the record that would require 225 Million of the aforementioned Domes or enough domes if laid side by side to circle the Earth 2807 Times.
Its kind of a big job dont you think.-- jhomrighaus, Mar 27 2006 oh.-- daaisy, Mar 27 2006 I like the thinking though bun from me.-- jhomrighaus, Mar 27 2006 However, When ice rests in water it displaces water, so when it melts it just gets back in to the water, I see no increase in the water level. No you are mistaken my friends, the rise in water level is because water is dumped on our planet in the form of rain from the outer reaches of the atmosfear by aliens who need to get rid of their water because it is poison to them!
And no, we are not going to pay for your ideas. We will simply raise our dikes.-- zeno, Mar 27 2006 zeno is right. The rise in the sea level will be due to actual expansion of the water itself (like the mercury in a thermometer, but on a bigger and smaller scale).
You can try this at home. Put an ice cube in some water. Measure the depth of the water. Wait until it melts, then measure it again. Then heat it gently (about 10 degrees C or so) and measure it. In theory it should first stay, then move.
This idea is therefore completely useless, but strangely appealing. Unfortunately for your bun status, apparently (according to a discussion I read somewhere here) the vacuum pressure is only active to about 10m, before which you get a bubble of vacuum. Also, if it was windy and some air got underneath, all the water would suddenly shoot out, causing a big wave.
Bun+Bone+Bone=Bone, I'm afraid.-- dbmag9, Mar 27 2006 There is only one little problem with your science there zeno and dbmag9. The ice that is melting that will cause the rise in sea level is not currently floating in the water. Some of the ice in the North Pole is floating, however the ice and glaciers in Greenland, Northern Canada, Iceland, Siberia and the entire continent of antartica are firmly planted on solid ground, above sea level. it is this ice that will cause the rise in levels with a small contribution from thermal Expansion of the exisiting water in the ocean.-- jhomrighaus, Mar 27 2006 mm, ok, vacuum, 10m, i see... but hypothetically, lots of little domey things would have the same effect as a few big ones, surely?-- daaisy, Mar 27 2006 As has been already pointed out elsewhere in the Halfbakery, the most common way to lower sea levels is to build big dams on rivers. (Which causes a flood of other problems . . ..)
For us non-metric people, thirty-two feet is the maximum height to which water can be raised with a vacuum. I don't know how long it would take for the water to settle out as the vacuum got contaminated by air dissolved in the water, but I'd say it's a factor.-- baconbrain, Mar 27 2006 I'm just imagining millions of people holding straws with their fingers over the tops.-- DesertFox, Mar 27 2006 To be approximately exact it would require 458,598,726,114,649 people holding 5mm straws .5 meters long to hold 1.6 million Cubic Meters of water.
For those keeping score thats 458 Trillion .5 meter straws or 916 Trillion average soda straws, so if we round up that becomes a nice even Quadrillion straws(to account for tired fingers and holes in straws).
Im not sure but that may be more than all the soda straws ever made in all the world ever in history.
Now if someone was really bored they could calculate out the total number of coffee stirrers(those little double tubular ones) that it would take.-- jhomrighaus, Mar 28 2006 Sheesh. people. Just drink more water.-- egbert, Mar 28 2006 So the solution is clear, then. In order to protect the Netherlands, and other low-lying (why did my mind think "low-life" just now?) areas from flooding what we must do is make more ice cubes. LOTS more ice cubes. Keep your freezer trays full, prepare and bag as many ice cubes as you can. Each of us that can afford it will need to buy one or two more freezers to store our bags of ice cubes (don't remind me that we'll need more energy to run these freezers, which will result in more global warming, thereby causing faster melting ...Doh!)
OK, couldn't we turn some of the excess water into hydrogen and oxygen, to be stored away for future conversion to water when really needed? I'm sure someone could come up with a machine to do this. All it would take is a whole bunch of electrical energy which we could generate by burning fossil fuels which will release more greenhouse gases and... Doh!
Hmmm, how about evaporating all the water out of water and storing it in little sachets. They could be labelled "instant water" and the instructions would read "tear package open, empty contents into container, add water, and stir"...Doh!
Well, I'm fresh out of ideas.
<shameless plug - Drink Canada Dry. - end sp>-- Canuck, Mar 28 2006 random, halfbakery