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I have long wanted to dam up the Straits of Gibraltar and recover the initial conditions described in Julian May's Many Coloured^* Land. * Cultural baggage.
by hardlianotion 5y ago
I have long wanted to dam up the Straits of Gibraltar and recover the initial conditions described in Julian May's Many Coloured^* Land.
* Cultural baggage.
- teddyh 5y agohttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1190:_Time https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1190:_Time
- hardlianotion 5y agoThat's amazing!
- AlbertCory 5y agoIf you've ever visited the Vasa [1] in Stockholm, you know that wooden ship was fairly well preserved after 300 years, because the Baltic is less salty than the ocean. Its connectivity with the North Sea is pretty limited, so over time that's what happened. So, we don't have to totally dry up the Med; just turn it into an almost-fresh-water lake! Randall, calculate how many thousands or millions of years that would take. [1] https://www.vasamuseet.se/en https://www.vasamuseet.se/en
- m4rtink 5y agoI think the idea is that you let in water from rivers and possibly also from the Atlantic and possibly even the Red Sea, in a controlled manner, have it run via turbines and keep the actual water level low via evaporation to keep the whole scheme working. This will eventually result in salt and minerals from the water concentrating in whats left of Mediterranean - so basically the exact opposite effect.
- AlbertCory 5y agoI wasn't being serious, of course, but since you brought it up: why IS the Baltic less salty?
- m4rtink 5y agoGood question! According to the Wikipedia article about the Baltic it is due to all the rivers & water from the North Sea actually not mixing with the Baltic very much in practice.