I read this on Quora, and it seemed like an interesting
what-if.
Do readers remember Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise"
where a protagonist builds a bridge over Gibraltar?
answerHypothetical ScenariosTopic you might like
Niky Tamayo
8h ago
Would it be a good idea to empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land
for humans?
Only inflows from the Atlantic keep the Mediterranean from drying up. If
you could actually build the fifteen kilometer long dam needed to plug
up the flow at the Straits of Gibraltar, it would only take a thousand
years to dry up the entire basin, and while waiting for it to dry out,
you can use the dam to generate gigawatts of electricity.
(It seems to me, that's a NO, if you are generating energy by
allowing water flow, you are not dyring it up!)
(The Nazis wanted to do it. But then they were also slightly nuts)
Not that the extra land would do you a lot of good, since the previous
drying of the basin left salt beds up to a kilometer thick at some
points, making it unsuitable for mass agriculture without a lot of soil >engineering. Which, honestly, would be better applied to non-arable land
that is already dry… and safe from biblical flooding. Because there is a
very real danger of tectonic movement destroying the Dam (Isthmus?) of >Gibraltar. And if you lift nearly four million gigatons of water off
that basin, you are damn well assured that those plates are going to
shift around!
In the meantime, having all that water dry up and leave the basin >semi-permanently would lower precipitation (rain) around the basin,
further hurting agriculture. Not to mention the huge loss of fishing
stock. And the pesky issue of having global sea levels rise several
meters or so. (that water has to go somewhere….). Which means even less >liveable space for humanity, over all.
(italkali.com)
But hey, we’d be getting all that salt…
93K viewsView Upvoters
Lots of comments are available at the Quora.
On Sat, 3 Oct 2020 09:19:49 -0700, a425couple <a425couple@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Good article though in my opinion you've left out one critical element
- draining a body of water like this (which wouldn't be 100% even if
feasible from an engineering point of view - there would bound to be
some lakes - would definitely affect climate patterns.
A bridge wouldn't do this as it wouldn't be intended to drain the Med
but a dam certainly would.
In Julian May's The Many Colored Land series (part of which involves--
time travellers in 6 million BC when there was supposed to have been a
land bridge from Spain to Morocco similar to what you're describing,
one of the anti-hero / villain characters sends a bolt of psychic
energy against the "dam" causing small ruptures that eventually bring
the whole thing down thus creating the Med)
I read this on Quora, and it seemed like an interesting
what-if.
Do readers remember Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise"
where a protagonist builds a bridge over Gibraltar?
answerHypothetical ScenariosTopic you might like
Niky Tamayo
8h ago
Would it be a good idea to empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land >>for humans?
Only inflows from the Atlantic keep the Mediterranean from drying up. If >>you could actually build the fifteen kilometer long dam needed to plug
up the flow at the Straits of Gibraltar, it would only take a thousand >>years to dry up the entire basin, and while waiting for it to dry out,
you can use the dam to generate gigawatts of electricity.
(It seems to me, that's a NO, if you are generating energy by
allowing water flow, you are not dyring it up!)
(The Nazis wanted to do it. But then they were also slightly nuts)
Not that the extra land would do you a lot of good, since the previous >>drying of the basin left salt beds up to a kilometer thick at some
points, making it unsuitable for mass agriculture without a lot of soil >>engineering. Which, honestly, would be better applied to non-arable land >>that is already dry… and safe from biblical flooding. Because there is a >>very real danger of tectonic movement destroying the Dam (Isthmus?) of >>Gibraltar. And if you lift nearly four million gigatons of water off
that basin, you are damn well assured that those plates are going to
shift around!
In the meantime, having all that water dry up and leave the basin >>semi-permanently would lower precipitation (rain) around the basin,
further hurting agriculture. Not to mention the huge loss of fishing
stock. And the pesky issue of having global sea levels rise several
meters or so. (that water has to go somewhere….). Which means even less >>liveable space for humanity, over all.
(italkali.com)
But hey, we’d be getting all that salt…
93K viewsView Upvoters
Lots of comments are available at the Quora.
I read this on Quora, and it seemed like an interestingWe would have some more land, about the size of Argentina.
what-if.
Do readers remember Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise"
where a protagonist builds a bridge over Gibraltar?
answerHypothetical ScenariosTopic you might like
Niky Tamayo
8h ago
Would it be a good idea to empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land
for humans?
Only inflows from the Atlantic keep the Mediterranean from drying up. If
you could actually build the fifteen kilometer long dam needed to plug
up the flow at the Straits of Gibraltar, it would only take a thousand
years to dry up the entire basin, and while waiting for it to dry out,
you can use the dam to generate gigawatts of electricity.
(It seems to me, that's a NO, if you are generating energy by
allowing water flow, you are not dyring it up!)
(The Nazis wanted to do it. But then they were also slightly nuts)
Not that the extra land would do you a lot of good, since the previous
drying of the basin left salt beds up to a kilometer thick at some
points, making it unsuitable for mass agriculture without a lot of soil engineering. Which, honestly, would be better applied to non-arable land
that is already dry¡K and safe from biblical flooding. Because there is a very real danger of tectonic movement destroying the Dam (Isthmus?) of Gibraltar. And if you lift nearly four million gigatons of water off
that basin, you are damn well assured that those plates are going to
shift around!
In the meantime, having all that water dry up and leave the basin semi-permanently would lower precipitation (rain) around the basin,
further hurting agriculture. Not to mention the huge loss of fishing
stock. And the pesky issue of having global sea levels rise several
meters or so. (that water has to go somewhere¡K.). Which means even less liveable space for humanity, over all.
(italkali.com)
But hey, we¡¦d be getting all that salt¡K
93K viewsView Upvoters
Lots of comments are available at the Quora.
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