[geeks] Mr Bill?

[Phil Stracchino]

Mike Meredith wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:27:52 -0400, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
>> Will the Thames Barrier hold against seas raised by the melting of
>> the Antarctic?
> 
> An 80-metre rise in sea level? Even if it did hold (it wouldn't), the
> leakage around the edges would effectively mean it wasn't there.

If the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps melt, the world will look very
different indeed.  The US east coast would recede halfway to the
Appalachians.  Florida and Louisiana would vanish entirely.  Cuba would
become a chain of isolated islands, and only the central highlands of
the Yucatan would be above water.  Most of the Amazon Basin would become
an inland sea, as would much of central Argentina.  The Low Countries
would be gone, the UK a dense cluster of small islands, Denmark scarcely
more than a few reefs, Germany and Poland underwater from the Baltic
coast to south of Berlin.  The Gulf of Finland would swallow Estonia,
most of Latvia, and Russia up to Lake Ladoga and beyond.  Huge tracts of
Siberia would vanish underwater, along with much of China.  Forget about
Bangladesh, and say goodbye to half of Pakistan and large areas of
eastern India.  Memphis would become beachfront property.  Belarus would
gain a coastline.  Australia would gain two inland seas.

The good news is it'd most likely happen slowly enough no-one would
drown as a direct result unless they were stupid.  But probably close to
a billion people would be looking for new places to live.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.