A proposal to save northern Europe from being wiped out (or significantly disrupted) by sea level rise in the event that the world can’t agree on measure to control GHG emissions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_European_Enclosure_Dam

The plan is to build 2 dames to enclose the North Sea. One from Cornwall to Brittany, and one from Scotland to Norway, possibly via the Shetland and Orkney Islands. It would have to incorporate locks for shipping to pass through from one side to the other. Would need to pump water out of the enclosure into the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually the North Sea would become pretty much a huge freshwater sea. It would probably change the climate and all that too. And disrupt the tides.

Could also provide a bridge from Scotland to Europe. Would be an interesting drive, about 470 km.

Not sold on the idea. It would have huge environmental consequences for the North Sea, but it would save a lot of the environments on land.

party_pants said:

A proposal to save northern Europe from being wiped out (or significantly disrupted) by sea level rise in the event that the world can’t agree on measure to control GHG emissions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_European_Enclosure_Dam

The plan is to build 2 dames to enclose the North Sea. One from Cornwall to Brittany, and one from Scotland to Norway, possibly via the Shetland and Orkney Islands. It would have to incorporate locks for shipping to pass through from one side to the other. Would need to pump water out of the enclosure into the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually the North Sea would become pretty much a huge freshwater sea. It would probably change the climate and all that too. And disrupt the tides.

Could also provide a bridge from Scotland to Europe. Would be an interesting drive, about 470 km.

Not sold on the idea. It would have huge environmental consequences for the North Sea, but it would save a lot of the environments on land.

Yeah, no me gusta

party_pants said:

A proposal to save northern Europe from being wiped out (or significantly disrupted) by sea level rise in the event that the world can’t agree on measure to control GHG emissions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_European_Enclosure_Dam

The plan is to build 2 dames to enclose the North Sea. One from Cornwall to Brittany, and one from Scotland to Norway, possibly via the Shetland and Orkney Islands. It would have to incorporate locks for shipping to pass through from one side to the other. Would need to pump water out of the enclosure into the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually the North Sea would become pretty much a huge freshwater sea. It would probably change the climate and all that too. And disrupt the tides.

Could also provide a bridge from Scotland to Europe. Would be an interesting drive, about 470 km.

Not sold on the idea. It would have huge environmental consequences for the North Sea, but it would save a lot of the environments on land.

Won’t someone think of the annelids.

And I thought I was being extreme when I proposed building a dam across Sydney Harbour to make it into a freshwater lake. Gees, I am so conservative. I did see on TV recently about some nation that had turned a large estuary into a freshwater lake. Somewhere in SE Asia, or Arabia?

> Could also provide a bridge from Scotland to Europe. Would be an interesting drive, about 470 km.

Not high on my list of Bridge priorities. Higher on my bridge priorities are:
Gibraltar Bridge (14 km)
Port Phillip heads (The rip, 5.7 km)
North to South Island NZ (22 km)
Sunda Strait (27 km)

what level of sea level rise would warrant serious consideration of this project though

SCIENCE said:

what level of sea level rise would warrant serious consideration of this project though

About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level. Other countries in that area, Denmark, Germany, Scandewegia have lots of areas of low lying coastal land. I think they are talking 1m by 2100 or something like that.

If you are going to go to this length why not go the full hog and get Doggerland back…

sarahs mum said:

If you are going to go to this length why not go the full hog and get Doggerland back…

That would be interesting, but it would require lowering the sea level by quite some way. Part of the idea was to protect current shipping and port installations without needing to rebuild them somewhere else because of rising sea levels. Lowering the sea level too much might lead to the same problem.

sarahs mum said:

If you are going to go to this length why not go the full hog and get Doggerland back…

I was thinking the same thing, sm :)

party_pants said:

sarahs mum said:

If you are going to go to this length why not go the full hog and get Doggerland back…

That would be interesting, but it would require lowering the sea level by quite some way. Part of the idea was to protect current shipping and port installations without needing to rebuild them somewhere else because of rising sea levels. Lowering the sea level too much might lead to the same problem.

Lowering it the full hog means you could go by truck.

sarahs mum said:

party_pants said:

sarahs mum said:

If you are going to go to this length why not go the full hog and get Doggerland back…

That would be interesting, but it would require lowering the sea level by quite some way. Part of the idea was to protect current shipping and port installations without needing to rebuild them somewhere else because of rising sea levels. Lowering the sea level too much might lead to the same problem.

Lowering it the full hog means you could go by truck.

Mind it would contribute to extra sea rise everywhere else. I am too dumb for that maths.

sarahs mum said:

sarahs mum said:

party_pants said:

That would be interesting, but it would require lowering the sea level by quite some way. Part of the idea was to protect current shipping and port installations without needing to rebuild them somewhere else because of rising sea levels. Lowering the sea level too much might lead to the same problem.

Lowering it the full hog means you could go by truck.

Mind it would contribute to extra sea rise everywhere else. I am too dumb for that maths.

In a rapidly changing environment, what could possibly go wrong?

Given the rainfall/evap situation in that part of the world, they’ll need to expend a lot of energy pumping water out to keep the level low.

Or we could just stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

party_pants said:

SCIENCE said:

what level of sea level rise would warrant serious consideration of this project though

About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level. Other countries in that area, Denmark, Germany, Scandewegia have lots of areas of low lying coastal land. I think they are talking 1m by 2100 or something like that.

I was wondering about that. It occurred to me that the Netherlands could build artificial deltas by filtering suspended solids out of its rivers, then easily pumping those solids on top of its dykes.

The same could be more easily done by dredging, but dredging can leave an unstable slope on the ocean bottom so care would be needed there.

I wonder how expensive it is to dredge bulk soil.

PS. Why doesn’t the Netherlands have a huge salinity problem?

Michael V said:

Or we could just stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

Some of us are trying. I’m planting a couple of trees a day even at my age.

Michael V said:

Or we could just stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

mollwollfumble said:

party_pants said:

SCIENCE said:

what level of sea level rise would warrant serious consideration of this project though

About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level. Other countries in that area, Denmark, Germany, Scandewegia have lots of areas of low lying coastal land. I think they are talking 1m by 2100 or something like that.

I was wondering about that. It occurred to me that the Netherlands could build artificial deltas by filtering suspended solids out of its rivers, then easily pumping those solids on top of its dykes.

The same could be more easily done by dredging, but dredging can leave an unstable slope on the ocean bottom so care would be needed there.

I wonder how expensive it is to dredge bulk soil.

PS. Why doesn’t the Netherlands have a huge salinity problem?

That’s a good question. Why isn’t it a salty wasteland?

sibeen said:

mollwollfumble said:

party_pants said:

About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level. Other countries in that area, Denmark, Germany, Scandewegia have lots of areas of low lying coastal land. I think they are talking 1m by 2100 or something like that.

I was wondering about that. It occurred to me that the Netherlands could build artificial deltas by filtering suspended solids out of its rivers, then easily pumping those solids on top of its dykes.

The same could be more easily done by dredging, but dredging can leave an unstable slope on the ocean bottom so care would be needed there.

I wonder how expensive it is to dredge bulk soil.

PS. Why doesn’t the Netherlands have a huge salinity problem?

That’s a good question. Why isn’t it a salty wasteland?

Because the pumped water represents outflow.

dv said:

sibeen said:

mollwollfumble said:

I was wondering about that. It occurred to me that the Netherlands could build artificial deltas by filtering suspended solids out of its rivers, then easily pumping those solids on top of its dykes.

The same could be more easily done by dredging, but dredging can leave an unstable slope on the ocean bottom so care would be needed there.

I wonder how expensive it is to dredge bulk soil.

PS. Why doesn’t the Netherlands have a huge salinity problem?

That’s a good question. Why isn’t it a salty wasteland?

Because the pumped water represents outflow.

But what of the salt bound up in the soil?

dv said:

sibeen said:

mollwollfumble said:

I was wondering about that. It occurred to me that the Netherlands could build artificial deltas by filtering suspended solids out of its rivers, then easily pumping those solids on top of its dykes.

The same could be more easily done by dredging, but dredging can leave an unstable slope on the ocean bottom so care would be needed there.

I wonder how expensive it is to dredge bulk soil.

PS. Why doesn’t the Netherlands have a huge salinity problem?

That’s a good question. Why isn’t it a salty wasteland?

Because the pumped water represents outflow.

correct.

sibeen said:

dv said:

sibeen said:

That’s a good question. Why isn’t it a salty wasteland?

Because the pumped water represents outflow.

But what of the salt bound up in the soil?

https://www.climatechangepost.com/netherlands/salt-intrusion/

sibeen said:

dv said:

sibeen said:

That’s a good question. Why isn’t it a salty wasteland?

Because the pumped water represents outflow.

But what of the salt bound up in the soil?

Well that’s the source of all the earth’s salt, but there’s a finite amount of it at any location. The water they pump out also contains salt and eventually it would have reached an equilibrium

dv said:

sibeen said:

dv said:

Because the pumped water represents outflow.

But what of the salt bound up in the soil?

Well that’s the source of all the earth’s salt, but there’s a finite amount of it at any location. The water they pump out also contains salt and eventually it would have reached an equilibrium

It is all in that link I posted.

Wouldn’t starting off with a dam across the Mediterranean be a better idea?

On the plus side, either option could provide tidal power + near-infinite pumped storage capacity.

On the down side, dam failure would be pretty nasty.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

sibeen said:

But what of the salt bound up in the soil?

Well that’s the source of all the earth’s salt, but there’s a finite amount of it at any location. The water they pump out also contains salt and eventually it would have reached an equilibrium

It is all in that link I posted.

Well I’ll just pipe down then

dv said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Well that’s the source of all the earth’s salt, but there’s a finite amount of it at any location. The water they pump out also contains salt and eventually it would have reached an equilibrium

It is all in that link I posted.

Well I’ll just pipe down then

No matter.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Wouldn’t starting off with a dam across the Mediterranean be a better idea?

On the plus side, either option could provide tidal power + near-infinite pumped storage capacity.

On the down side, dam failure would be pretty nasty.

That’s was discussed some years ago.

The problem with damming off the Mediterranean is that evaporation exceeds inflow from rivers.

So damming off the Mediterranean would give us another Dead Sea, a big one, which isn’t great. For starters it would reduce rainfall around the Mediterranean Sea.

On the other hand, running hydro power through the Straits of Gibraltar from water flowing into the Mediterranean would work, a nice big salmon ladder, too, for fish.

Michael V said:

Or we could just stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

That is obviously Plan A, the dam idea is Plan B in case that cannot be achieved.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Wouldn’t starting off with a dam across the Mediterranean be a better idea?

That is somebody else’s problem. Damning the Med won’t help countries with vulnerable coastal areas on the North Sea.

party_pants said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Wouldn’t starting off with a dam across the Mediterranean be a better idea?

That is somebody else’s problem. Damning the Med won’t help countries with vulnerable coastal areas on the North Sea.

Yes it will.

They will have a clearer idea of the problems, and how to avoid them.

The Rev Dodgson said:

party_pants said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Wouldn’t starting off with a dam across the Mediterranean be a better idea?

That is somebody else’s problem. Damning the Med won’t help countries with vulnerable coastal areas on the North Sea.

Yes it will.

They will have a clearer idea of the problems, and how to avoid them.

That is a bit indirect and intangible.

party_pants said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

party_pants said:

That is somebody else’s problem. Damning the Med won’t help countries with vulnerable coastal areas on the North Sea.

Yes it will.

They will have a clearer idea of the problems, and how to avoid them.

That is a bit indirect and intangible.

they will have access to expertise and experience from the earlier project

SCIENCE said:

party_pants said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Yes it will.

They will have a clearer idea of the problems, and how to avoid them.

That is a bit indirect and intangible.

they will have access to expertise and experience from the earlier project

They’ve got access to it now, via the Netherland’s experience.