Re: World is 10 deg chillier: storing water in antarctica

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Fri Jan 26 2001 - 15:50:49 MST


> > Spike Jones wrote: could we not pump sea water inland on
> > Antarctica and spew it into the sky on a cold dark summer day?
>
> Michael Lorrey wrote:What impact upon ocean sea
> levels has the Russian redirecting of rivers away from the Caspian and
> Aral seas done?

Practically none. If you look at a globe and note the approximate
area of all the rivers on the planet, then estimate their depth,
then compare with the ocean and estimate its average depth,
you will see that damming rivers wont store much water.

> Your idea I think would likely be a bad idea, since ice in Antarctica is
> pure water, not salt water, adding salt would loosen it up and cause it
> to flow outward.

Sure, but Antarctica is big, remember, and it has dry inland areas.
The Antarctic is the only landmass that has huge expanses
of disposable land, where no one lives already. It is fortunate
that all we would need to do is pump the water onto it.
the average temperature, even in a warmed earth, is low
enough to freeze the water as you go along, even salty
sea water, freezing point ~ -19C methinks.

We could create a virtual mountain of ice. Using the
previous calcs, 4E14 cubic meters to lower the sea
one meter, the mountain would need to be 10 km high
and have a 200 km radius. Then once it is finished,
we build a rail gun track up the side and launch stuff
into polar orbits. Penguins, schmenguins, lets do it! spike



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