What America will look like once global warming melts the polar ice caps

[kpete]

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/folger-text
http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/what-america-will-look-like-once-global-warming-melts-the-polar-ice-caps/

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. I tell people we will have beach front property (in Raleigh) as snarky joke - but looking at the map

it may be no joke at all....yikes..

[jeff47]

3. I'm gonna go build me a dock! (nt)

[bluestate10]

64. Forget the dock, build an Arc. nt

[calimary]

13. Yeah, no shit.

Scary. Oh, but there is no such thing as global warming... that's just a lie that some liberal made up...

Our house is in an area 500 feet above sea level. So maybe it won't be so far to the beach?

[stonecutter357]

40. beach front for me,i knew living in Alabama would pay off

[davidn3600]

2. Florida, New York City, Boston, D.C., and New Orleans all on the bottom of the sea

We'd have to find a new capital city.

[woodsprite]

4. Maybe Morgan Freeman should be our next President. n/t

[AAO]

52. I'm guessing the residents of Atlantis will be embarrassed!

We're number 1 !!!

[snooper2]

5. Well, some of us have been wanting to cut Florida off for years

You have to admit, the shape of the country looks better without that udder hanging off the right side

[Yavin4]

6. Well, we would be rid of Florida which would solve some problems right there.

So, there is an upside.

[lame54]

7. my house is in the blue

[bluestate10]

66. So is mine. Ohio, here I come......some day. nt

[Thirties Child]

8. And that's why Atlanta is named Atlanta

It's going to be on the Atlantic coast eventually.

[monmouth3]

9. Wow, I'm very, very east on the Florida coast. GBCW....n/r

[JaneyVee]

10. Fuuuuuuuck. That's me, on the East coast, underwater.

[Dash87]

11. I guess I'll be moving to Rapture then

[CFLDem]

60. You and me both! nt

[mitchtv]

12. apparently, we will end up saving the Salton Sea

inspite of ourselves.

[2naSalit]

19. How unfortunate.

Nasty, stinking mudhole that it is.

Last time I was there it smelled so bad I couldn't stand outside the car without a respirator... and that was in the late 1980s. The shore was made of densely laid fish vertebra and there were horrid shore birds with spike-like beaks flying right at us. We didn't stay long, drove off to another part of the desert to get away from that.

[RC]

14. Isn't Hawaii a part of the United States?

Where is it? I know parts of every Island will be submerged.

[KamaAina]

34. Maui might be cut in two

I don't know the exact elevation of the isthmus between Kahului and Kihei, but it isn't very high.

[jtuck004]

15. Huh. Well, I guess that's one way to turn Florida blue. n/t

[valerief]

23. DUzy!

[SammyWinstonJack]

86. heh.

[underpants]

16. We get Canada???

[bluestate10]

67. A lot of Canada will be underwater. Nova Scotia will be gone. nt

[Roland99]

17. But that would mostly come from the Antartic...which is highly unlikely

Greenland losing its ice would add 20' feet by itself, though.

[grantcart]

18. Look at Cuba.

Bangkok is already approaching Ocean level. It will be the first mega city to go under.

[Cryptoad]

20. There is going to be a whole bunch of

pissed off Super Rich who live on the Beach! Im sure their lost will be made up to them by the Gubermint!

[tclambert]

50. I'm sure we will "bail out" the super rich

by building huge dikes around their properties, with enormous pumping stations to keep them dry. Poor people? We will instruct them to move uphill as their hovels wash away.

[Mariana]

79. Exactly. They'll get bailed out, again and again.

Remember this will take place over time. The super rich will get compensated. Then they'll buy up all of the new shoreline property and kick out the residents. When the shoreline moves again, to the point that their new beach mansions are cut off, they'll simply repeat the process.

[valerief]

21. Is this the only way we can get rid of Rick Scott and Marco Rubio? nt

[FarCenter]

22. It can never happen

Economically recoverable fossil fuels won't last more than several more decades. Emissions will level off and fall as resources exhaust.

The Antarctic ice is very thick and takes a very long time to melt. Thousands of years, as the Washington Post says.

Carbon dioxide does not stay in the atmosphere forever. The estimated half life is about 200 years.

Therefore, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will rise, peak and decline before the ice caps are entirely melted and you will never get a 216 foot rise in sea level.

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

26. That's ok then.......

[FarCenter]

36. Unfortunately, my property will not be beachfront in my lifetime.

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

80. It won't matter because..

The water will be fouled up by all the shit we're pumping into it and there will be huge algal blooms that will make it a blood red ocean...that's if tracking hasn't got us drinking poisonous water...that's if all the nuclear plants near water sources haven't been flooded and failed like Fukushima .....it all looks good for us and luckily the markets will sort it out as per usual...it's going to be a legacy we can all be proud of.....thank god for the rapture is all i can say..

[customerserviceguy]

37. Besides, I figure that there will be a technologically feasible way

to simply turn huge amounts of excess water into oxygen and hydrogen, the latter of which could be piped off into space, so that it won't reconstitute water again. Yes, it will take a lot of energy, but it will probably be solar or geothermal. Sure, it'll be expensive, but cheaper than losing many trillions of dollars worth of buildings and land in waterfront areas.

[Scootaloo]

43. That's the most horiffic "climate fix" idea i've heard

And I've read about filling the atmosphere full of sulfur as a reflector.

Really? Destroy our "extra" water?

[customerserviceguy]

46. Yes

Whatever energy force is harnessed to break down that water can also be used to desalinize it. We've got a lot of water on this planet, and in the case of icecap melt, the problem is too much of it.

If major cities with wealthy populations are indeed threatened by a rising sea level, someone will find a way to do it. All they'd have to do is operate it on some island somewhere, and they'd be beyond the reach of anyone who wanted to stop them. And why would the wealthier nations of the world try to interfere? They have as much to lose by rising sea levels as anyone.

[Scootaloo]

51. I'm not sure if you're advocating, or just going all sci-fi theory on this

The idea of obliterating our planet's water by some measurable amount is, frankly, insane. There's only so much, after all, and unless we find a way to squeeze the moon or melt Mars and bring that juice back, what we have is all we'll ever have (and is slightly less than the planet started out with in the first place.)

The problem isn't "too much water," the problem is "people living in bad places." it is, in fact, far cheaper to move people from one place to another, than it is to run an operation like this, much less when one considers the long-term results of destroying THAT much water. Good lord..

[customerserviceguy]

76. OK, so put you down

as someone who thinks we don't have too much seawater. Especially after several continued decades of warming, and ice cap melt. I disagree.

[pokerfan]

53. Earth doesn't have *that* much water

Reducing the amount of water would be treating the symptom, not the disease.

[NoOneMan]

54. LOL. Lets burn coal to breakdown water and get rid of it!

In a future world of a warming world with the simultaneous projected shortfall of freshwater, this just seems ludicrous (and yeah, the coal thing was my added joke). But lo and behold, all we need to solve our beachfront problem is more energy driven technology!

If we cared that much, maybe we should get our shit together today. And BTW, rising shores are--unless you live in Bangledesh--some of the least of the future's problems.

[customerserviceguy]

77. I never advocated that

I did think that solar and/or geothermal would be part of the solution, however. Of course, we could all go back to living in caves, with a mere one or two million humans on the planet, but I don't see that happening.

[FarCenter]

44. Most waterfront buildings weren't here in 1900. No reason to believe they'll be here in 2110.

Buildings are temporary compared with rates of man-made geologic change.

[customerserviceguy]

47. Good point

However, there may be threatened population centers that we don't think of today as "waterfront", but if the illustration in the OP ever looks like it may come true, it will accelerate development of a fix.

Hey, maybe someone can make a machine that spits out oxygen out of one end, and diamonds out of the other, all from atmospheric carbon dioxide.

[NoOneMan]

55. Do you realize if we could make such a machine....

(which would require vast amounts of energy, preferably "green&quot

We could probably more easily power a green world and lower the carbon intensity of energy such that this machine would not be needed. Does that make sense?

[customerserviceguy]

75. Absolutely

I would imagine that we'd always have some carbon emissions as a human society, so I would figure that we'd use such a machine at least from time to time.

Problems that seemed irresolvable a couple of centuries ago are commonly dealt with today. It just takes the right minds coming up with the right solutions.

[NoOneMan]

87. I think that is a very optimistic view

And quite naive at the same time, as it ignores history of collapse and suffering when timely solutions cannot be found. The road here wasn't always paved with constant "progress".

There are alternative theories on civilizations, such as Tainters. Perhaps when problems arise, humans must respond by vastly increasing both complexity and the baseline velocity of energy, thereby creating a slew of new problems to be solved tomorrow. This cycle repeats continually until inevitably there can simply be no technological breakthrough or there is not enough net available energy to solve the new problem, thereby creating a bottleneck that induces mass pain or full out civilization collapse (until the next time). There is absolutely no guarantee that any solution at any time will ultimately be reached. It seems that the only thing we can guarantee is that there will always be perpetual problems from the path of progress; though it is fair to say we've had a fairly good run for a while compared to many crumbled nations that exist in the footnotes of history.

[hunter]

74. That's what the Borg did...

They saved Florida!

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

82. Yes and the same corporations that ripped us off getting into this situation will....

Be the ones who drag us out of trouble for a price.....cynical but we're like those South American gold miners in that Smashing pumpkins filmclip ...like rats in a cage....

[NoOneMan]

58. So after we burn everything we can get our paws on.....

Do you not have any concerns about feedbacks? Will the already melting permafrost suddenly just stop releasing methane too?

I don't know what can happen anymore. But whether it hits that mark or not, a lot of us wont be around to notice.

[CFLDem]

61. Thank you for that dose of sanity!

[Uncle Joe]

62. Your post doesn't take methane in to account along with other feedbacks and tipping points,ie:

loss of white reflective snow and ice with an increasing amount of dark heat absorbing land/water mass, increasing deforestation with an adverse affect on carbon dioxide absorption, acidification and warming of the oceans destroying coral reefs which also serve to absorb carbon dioxide, not to mention wiping out vast numbers of ecosystems.

The Antarctic will not melt at a constant rate but is accelerating and will have major events in the process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide. According to work published in 2007, the concentrations of CO2 and methane have increased by 36% and 148% respectively since 1750.[65] These levels are much higher than at any time during the last 800,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores.[66][67][68][69] Less direct geological evidence indicates that CO2 values higher than this were last seen about 20 million years ago.[70] Fossil fuel burning has produced about three-quarters of the increase in CO2 from human activity over the past 20 years. The rest of this increase is caused mostly by changes in land-use, particularly deforestation.[71] Estimates of global CO2 emissions in 2011 from fossil fuel combustion, including cement production and gas flaring, was 34.8 billion tonnes (9.5 ± 0.5 PgC), an increase of 54% above emissions in 1990. Coal burning was responsible for 43% of the total emissions, oil 34%, gas 18%, cement 4.9% and gas flaring 0.7%[72] In May 2013, it was reported that readings for CO2 taken at the world's primary benchmark site in Mauna Loa surpassed 400 ppm. According to professor Brian Hoskins, this is likely the first time CO2 levels have been this high for about 4.5 million years.[73][74]

(snip)

Emissions scenarios, estimates of changes in future emission levels of greenhouse gases, have been projected that depend upon uncertain economic, sociological, technological, and natural developments.[80] In most scenarios, emissions continue to rise over the century, while in a few, emissions are reduced.[81][82] Fossil fuel reserves are abundant, and will not limit carbon emissions in the 21st century.[83] Emission scenarios, combined with modelling of the carbon cycle, have been used to produce estimates of how atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases might change in the future. Using the six IPCC SRES "marker" scenarios, models suggest that by the year 2100, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 could range between 541 and 970 ppm.[84] This is an increase of 90–250% above the concentration in the year 1750.

(snip)

Global dimming, a gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface, was observed from 1961 until at least 1990.[88] The main cause of this dimming is particulates produced by volcanoes and human made pollutants, which exerts a cooling effect by increasing the reflection of incoming sunlight. The effects of the products of fossil fuel combustion – CO2 and aerosols – have largely offset one another in recent decades, so that net warming has been due to the increase in non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as methane.[89] Radiative forcing due to particulates is temporally limited due to wet deposition which causes them to have an atmospheric lifetime of one week. Carbon dioxide has a lifetime of a century or more, and as such, changes in particulate concentrations will only delay climate changes due to carbon dioxide.[90]

(snip)

In terrestrial ecosystems, the earlier timing of spring events, and poleward and upward shifts in plant and animal ranges, have been linked with high confidence to recent warming.[134] Future climate change is expected to particularly affect certain ecosystems, including tundra, mangroves, and coral reefs.[140] It is expected that most ecosystems will be affected by higher atmospheric CO2 levels, combined with higher global temperatures.[148] Overall, it is expected that climate change will result in the extinction of many species and reduced diversity of ecosystems.[149]

The Antarctic will not melt at a constant rate but is accelerating, and is becoming more unstable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet

The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of the Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million square km (5.4 million sq. miles) and contains 26.5 million cubic km of ice[2] (6.36 million cubic miles). That is, approximately 61 percent of all fresh water on the Earth is held in the Antarctic ice sheet, an amount equivalent to 70 m of water in the world's oceans. In East Antarctica, the ice sheet rests on a major land mass, but in West Antarctica the bed can extend to more than 2,500 m below sea level. Much of the land in this area would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there.

In contrast to the melting of the Arctic sea ice, sea ice around Antarctica has expanded in recent years.[3] The reasons for this are not fully understood, but suggestions include the climatic effects on ocean and atmospheric circulation of the ozone hole,[3] and/or cooler ocean surface temperatures as the warming deep waters melt the ice shelves.[4]

If the transfer of the ice from the land to the sea is balanced by snow falling back on the land then there will be no net contribution to global sea levels. A 2002 analysis of NASA satellite data from 1979–1999 showed that while overall the land ice is decreasing, areas of Antarctica where sea ice was increasing outnumbered areas of decreasing sea ice roughly 2:1.[15] The general trend shows that a warming climate in the southern hemisphere would transport more moisture to Antarctica, causing the interior ice sheets to grow, while calving events along the coast will increase, causing these areas to shrink. A 2006 paper derived from satellite data, measures changes in the gravity of the ice mass, suggests that the total amount of ice in Antarctica has begun decreasing in the past few years.[16] Another recent study compared the ice leaving the ice sheet, by measuring the ice velocity and thickness along the coast, to the amount of snow accumulation over the continent. This found that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was in balance but the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was losing mass. This was largely due to acceleration of ice streams such as Pine Island Glacier. These results agree closely with the gravity changes.[17][18] The estimate published in November 2012 and based on the GRACE data as well as on an improved glacial isostatic adjustment model indicates that an average yearly mass loss was 69 ± 18 Gt/y from 2002 to 2010. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet was approximately in balance while the East Antarctic Ice Sheet gained mass. The mass loss was mainly concentrated along the Amundsen Sea coast.[19]

Antarctic sea ice anomalies have roughly followed the pattern of warming, with the greatest declines occurring off the coast of West Antarctica. East Antarctica sea ice has been increasing since 1978, though not at a statistically significant rate[citation needed]. The atmospheric warming has been directly linked to the recent mass losses in West Antarctica. This mass loss is more likely to be due to increased melting of the ice shelves because of changes in ocean circulation patterns (which themselves may be linked to atmospheric circulation changes that may also explain the warming trends in West Antarctica). Melting of the ice shelves in turn causes the ice streams to speed up.[20] The melting and disappearance of the floating ice shelves will only have a small effect on sea level, which is due to salinity differences.[21][22][23] The most important consequence of their increased melting is the speed up of the ice streams on land which are buttressed by these ice shelves.

As the Arctic and Greenland Glacier's melt, the oceans will rise and this in turn will put more land based glaciers in Antarctic in danger of melting even sooner.

[FarCenter]

83. Most ice is in the East Antarctic; methane has a short lifetime in the atmosphere

The bulk of the Antarctic ice which is above sea level is in the East Antarctic, which is on a continental upland well above sea level.

Methane has a half-life in the atmosphere of 14 years IIRC.

There was a PNAS study a few years ago which concluded that a sudden release of large amounts of methane from hydrates was very improbable.

[Uncle Joe]

89. Methane traps 34 more times heat than carbon dioxide and methane's lifespan isn't fixed but subject

to the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere.

As deforestation continues less oxygen will be produced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

Atmospheric methane is the methane present in Earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric methane levels are of interest due to methane's impact on climate change, as it is one of the most potent greenhouse gases on Earth. The 100-year global warming potential of methane is 34,[1] i.e. over a 100-year period, it traps 34 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide and 32 times the effect when accounted for aerosol interactions.[2]

(snip)

Early in the Earth's history—about 3.5 billion years ago—there was 1,000 times as much methane in the atmosphere as there is now. The earliest methane was released into the atmosphere by volcanic activity. During this time, Earth's earliest life appeared. These first, ancient bacteria added to the methane concentration by converting hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methane and water. Oxygen did not become a major part of the atmosphere until photosynthetic organisms evolved later in Earth's history. With no oxygen, methane stayed in the atmosphere longer and at higher concentrations than it does today.

(snip)

Methane in the Earth's atmosphere is an important greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 34 over a 100-year period. This means that a methane emission will have 34 times the impact on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect for a brief period (a net lifetime of 12.4 years in the atmosphere), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20 year time period is 86. The Earth's methane concentration has increased by about 150% since 1750, and it accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all of the long-lived and globally mixed greenhouse gases.[4] Usually, excess methane from landfills and other natural producers of methane are burned so CO2 is released into the atmosphere instead of methane because methane is such a more effective greenhouse gas. Recently methane emitted from coal mines has been successfully converted to electricity.

(snip)

Although records of permafrost are limited, recent years (1999 to 2007) have seen record thawing of permafrost in Alaska and Siberia. Recent measurements in Siberia show that the methane released is five times greater than previously estimated.[15] Melting yedoma, a type of permafrost, is a significant source of atmospheric methane (about 4 Tg of CH4 per year).

Possible adverse effects projected as the gas escapes into the atmosphere from the Arctic permafrost are estimated to have the potential of a sixty trillion dollar impact on the world economy.[16]

As for large quantities of methane being released, it's already beginning and will accelerate as global temperatures rise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_release


The Arctic region is one of the many natural sources of the greenhouse gas methane.[1] Global warming accelerates its release, due to both release of methane from existing stores, and from methanogenesis in rotting biomass.[2] Large quantities of methane are stored in the Arctic in natural gas deposits, permafrost, and as submarine clathrates. Permafrost and clathrates degrade on warming, thus large releases of methane from these sources may arise as a result of global warming.[3][4] Other sources of methane include submarine taliks, river transport, ice complex retreat, submarine permafrost and decaying gas hydrate deposits.[5]

(snip)

In 2008 the United States Department of Energy National Laboratory system[14] identified potential clathrate destabilization in the Arctic as one the most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change, which have been singled out for priority research. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program released a report in late December 2008 estimating the gravity of the risk of clathrate destabilization, alongside three other credible abrupt climate change scenarios.[15]

Sea ice loss is correlated with warming of Northern latitudes. This has melting effects on permafrost, both in the sea,[16] and on land.[17] Lawrence et al. suggest that current rapid melting of the sea ice may induce a rapid melting of arctic permafrost.[17][18] This has consequential effects on methane release,[3] and wildlife.[17] Some studies imply a direct link, as they predict cold air passing over ice is replaced by warm air passing over the sea. This warm air carries heat to the permafrost around the Arctic, and melts it.[17] This permafrost then releases huge quantities of methane.[19] Methane release can be gaseous, but is also transported in solution by rivers.[5] NewScientist states that "Since existing models do not include feedback effects such as the heat generated by decomposition, the permafrost could melt far faster than generally thought."[20]

There is another possible mechanism for rapid methane release. As the Arctic ocean becomes more and more ice free, the ocean absorbs more of the incident energy from the sun. The Arctic ocean becomes warmer than the former ice cover and much more water vapour enters the air. At times when the adjacent land is colder than the sea, this causes rising air above the sea and an off-shore wind as air over the land comes in to replace the rising air over the sea. As the air rises, the dew point is reached and clouds form, releasing latent heat and further reinforcing the buoyancy of the air over the ocean. All this results in air being drawn from the south across the tundra rather than the present situation of cold air flowing toward the south from the cold sinking air over the Arctic ocean. The extra heat being drawn from the south further accelerates the warming of the permafrost and the Arctic ocean with increased release of methane.[citation needed]

When the other tipping points which you didn't address are taken in to account along with major spikes in methane release, that being more heat absorbing dark land mass and ocean surface area particulary close to Antarctica, Eastern Antarctica will start behaving more as Western Antarctica.




Of course all of Eastern Antarctica doesn't even have to melt to facilitate global catastrophe in regards global warming's impact to human civilization.

[Doctor_J]

85. So you're saying we'll suffocate before we drown?

I'm OK with that

[brooklynite]

24. I'm good.....

There's a reason they call it Brooklyn Heights

[Heather MC]

25. This Map Doedn't show what will happen to the great loop

The river the connects the gulf of Mexico with the great laked. It is going to be worse than this

[Brother Buzz]

27. Cool beans. With a little bit of dredging I could build a marina in lower forty

[joeybee12]

28. It gets rid of Rick Scott, Bully Christie and Sarah Palin...nt

[KamaAina]

32. Sorry, the Crisco Kid could just head up to northwest NJ

which, in addition to being mountainous, is heavily repuke (by NJ standards).

And actually, Caribou Barbie would just be seeing a little more water between her house and Russia.

[Dollysmom]

29. GREAT!

Atlanta will have a beach!!!

[KamaAina]

30. CA's Central Valley becomes an inland sea

as do the lower Mississippi and Alabama river valleys.

[KamaAina]

31. Look down at the bottom

Central America is breached roughly along the route of the proposed sea-level Nicaragua Canal, which, I hear, the Chinese are now reviving. That would have enormous consequences for marine life, as well as shipping, of course.

[FarCenter]

45. That may end the Ice Ages.

The current Ice Age sequence began after the Isthmus of Panama closed preventing circulation between the Caribbean and Pacific.

[Uncle Joe]

33. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[MissDeeds]

35. Well...

it looks like the red states are safe.

[Mariana]

81. Naturally. God favors them, you know.

Just ask them.

[Dopers_Greed]

38. Don't shed any tears for Rick Scott

His shiny, empty dome can surely double as a buoy.

[Catherine Vincent]

39. Looks like flyover country is the best place to be

[bluestate10]

68. Unfortunately. nt

[True Blue Door]

41. Inland seas have their advantages.

I'm sure the economic transition would be rough, but perhaps something could be gained by having Central California and Louisiana as inland seas. And that map doesn't show what kind of effects that would have on the surrounding environments. I'm sure some would desertify, but others would become moist and fertile.

It should also be noted that historically, peninsulas and archipelagos produce more dynamic, more creative societies than ones living in contiguous lumps of land. So coastlines that have a lot of peninsulas and archipelagos added to them could become useful after society had adjusted.

Just thinking on the bright side.

[NoOneMan]

57. Again, people focus too much on this because its easy to illustrate

Besides economic costs, you must imagine that the catastrophe this warming will cause to pretty beaches is about the same it will cause to staple crops. Talk about the economy adjusting all you want, but you first have to adjust to eating snails and small insects (because wheat/corn wont be doing so hot in the lower 48 and the acidic oceans will be dead).

[True Blue Door]

72. Most of our staple crops go into feeding farm animals anyway.

Maybe it would just make us wake up to the superior economics of vegetarianism.

[NoOneMan]

73. Why, that would require some amount of intelligence

And if that could exist, I'd assume it could be employed immediately to stave of this disaster

[Scootaloo]

42. But hey!

With Costa Rica now an open channel, water flow between the Caribbean / Gulf waterways and hte Pacific will once again resume, and those two seas will once again come to life.

Of course, this is until the northward pacific cold current smacks into the Atlantic, disrupting hte gulf stream and ushering in a new ice age.

But hey, those glaciers will soak up lots of water, and we'll get our coastal cities back, and then some! barnacles and all.

[H. Cromwell]

48. Goody

A drive to the beach will only take around 45 minutes...

[dipsydoodle]

49. I guess the moral is

to not have contributed so much to the cause since the 1950's. Spilled milk comes to mind.

[B Calm]

56. The Bahamas are under water too

[alfredo]

59. Will we call it the Mississippi bay? The Cuban archipelago?

No need for the Panama canal.

[Packerowner740]

63. Scary possibility

I'm at 3500 feet though so I think I'm safe.

[Uncle Joe]

65. Safety will be an illusion whether the ocean reaches you or not. Major die offs in biodiversity,

greatly decreased resources, increased chances of conflict, be that war or crime, more extreme climate or weather events, massive numbers of refugees seeking shelter, increased poverty, and unemployment, with more disease to boot.

I'm not trying to bring you down, but that is the the way I see it.

In the big scheme of things, there is no upside to global warmng climate change.

[Packerowner740]

69. You're right, that's why I posted the scary part

The rest was tongue in cheek, maybe in should have put that thingy.

[Uncle Joe]

71. No problem, I hate using that "sarcasm" thingy as well,

it's like having to explain a joke.

You're new here to D.U. had I known you better, perhaps I would've picked up on it.

Welcome to D.U. Packerowner.

[hatrack]

70. And the really cool part? How lifeless and acidic that seawater will be!

We're talking Canfield Ocean, anaerobic bacterial mats and lots and lots of hydrogen sulfide.

Surf's up!

[riversedge]

78. umm..looks like we would have only a Virtual Florida. Perhaps

a bit left in the handle but not much else. 49 states?

[Doctor_J]

84. Finally my place on Hudson Bay will be temperate

[jwirr]

88. Looking at MN. How far west does the lake expand?