From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Jul 18 2001 - 14:00:12 MDT
Party of Citizens wrote:
>
> Further to that global warming thread, is the rise in ocean water level
> the biggest foreseen problem associated with it? What are the others? Are
> there benefits on the other side of the ledger?
There are significant benefits. For example, the Siberian and Canadian
tundra would become far more settleable, and could become the
breadbaskets of the world. The recent opening of the Northwest Passage
over north America for commercial sea traffic cuts 5,000 nautical miles
off of the sea passage between Europe and Japan, with its commensurate
savings in both shipping costs and transit time, and less dependence
upon the Panama Canal as a strategic choke point.
Additionally, rainfall in the Sahara and central asia should increase
measurably, leading to the reversal of the deforestation trends of the
last century in those areas.
Even the interruption of the thermal conveyor from polar to equatorial
waters could potentially be of benefit, with the current based system
possibly giving way to a system of many more localized upwellings colder
fresher water and subsidence of high heat and saline waters. The
recently discovered phenomena of a heat vent in the central pacific as
the primal engine of thermal transfer there is related to the relative
lack of precipitation there under high temp conditions, could result in
Pacific currents developing in a radial fashion, drawing heat toward the
central pacific as hot air rises to vent its heat to space, with the
resulting winds influencing local water currents, and drawing cold water
up from the depths near the coastlines, which would lead to booms in
coastal oceanlife.
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