His calculations are to be published in the science journal Nature. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is a crucial parameter. “We found that the levels of CO2 which we could quite likely reach during this century are sufficient to produce that amount of warming,” he said. “Presuming the calculations are right, that it is going to happen, and that we are in the right ballpark, then you would prevent it (the meltdown) happening by not allowing CO2 to go above the levels we were considering,” Gregory said.
The lowest CO2 concentration scenario used in the models was 450 parts per million. Current levels are below that, according to Gregory, but by the middle of this century are likely to exceed it.
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This is so far away (over 300 years?) that perhaps we should start working on it now.
I suggest we start scooping sand from the ocean floors off the coast and depositing it on what is now dry land.
There are several benefits to this. First of all, it might be possible to extract huge quantities of minerals from the sand and seawater mix. Gold and uranium come to mind.
Second, it would be easy to plan the land (sand) masses for maximum usage — either by transportation systems or where people live.
Third and most obviously, as the mass of sand is extracted, it leaves space for the water to expand into. Remember, the earth is three-fourths covered by oceans, and under those waters is a lot of sand.
Finally, as the cool waters from the north flow across the oceans, they will lower the ocean’s temperature and contribute to global cooling to counteract the supposed warming.
A small but significant benefit would be the boost to employment and the economy from all the work involved.
* Sand is mostly quartz and feldspar, which are in abundance above-water already. Buy a 25kg sack for $2 at your home improvement store. Put heavy metals on the ocean floor and they tend to sink through the less-dense sand.
* There are such things as underwater ecosystems to worry about.
* You’re talking a lot of sand; the report says it will raise sea levels around the world by 7 meters. I daresay extracting 7 meters of seabed floor worldwide will not happen.
* You can’t take it too close to shore, or the shore will erode into the water.
Water covers 2/3 of the surface of the earth. To lower the sea level by 25 feet, you would have to extract enough sand, rock, or whatever to cover the entire land surface of the earth under 50 feet of material. How does this help us?
Why not build islands?
Obviously trying to pile up sand is like building a house out of feathers, so one would have to build a floating foundation of some sort, at least 1 square mile or more. Then pile on the sand until the original surface sinks to just under the water level. Rocks would possibly be needed to stabilize the foundation and help hold the sand in place, as well as lots of trees and foilage to prevent drainage. From this there’s the possibility of more land available for farming (floating farms) or even living area (marine RVs). Not sure if it will lower the ocean level, but it will provide a place for the sand.
The undersea currents that contribute to heat regulation in the ocean unfortunately act on a timescale of thousands of years, as well. So any alteration in the temperature from melting ice in the North will be almost non-existant, if this melting would even affect the temperature of the oceans (which is debatable). Southern undersea currents would (as Gulf Stream warm water sinks as it reaches the Northern Atlantic) would not nearly be given enough time to produce an atmospheric change in 300 years, unfortunately.
Living near the St. Johns river, this could work well for me. Just wait to become riverfront, sell, move to higher ground, repeat. If you think there won’t be any takers, it seems to me there are plenty of people who think all of the inconvenient scientific theories are just being advanced by those liberal/atheistic/ecology nut scientists. (Where did these people go to college? The science majors and professors were always the most conservative group on campus. If the polisci, art, or English majors were proposing global warming theories, they’d have more of a point.)