Waterworld

Janus · November 25, 2006

You may remember the movie of the same name. If not, the premise was that global warming had caused the ice caps to melt and Earth was now just one world girdling ocean.

The problem with this is that even if the ice sheets of the world all melted, the oceans would only rise about 80 meters, well short of that needed to flood every bit, or even the majority of, dry land.

So, what would the world look like in such an event? It just might look something like this:

I generated this image by using a technique I used over in the "Space voyage Chatter" thread. Essentially, it is done by modifying a spherical iso-surface object in POV-Ray with a function genrated from a bump map of the surface of the Earth (and image which showns the different altitudes of the Earth's surface with a greyscale). This creates an object which has a surface that actually follows the contour of the Earth itself. This iso-sphere is then image mapped with a map of the Earth.

Then a second sphere is added to represent the ocean. By proper scaling, the surface of the sphere can be set such that it corresponds with a sea level of 80 meter above present MSL. Only parts of the original objects surface that are "higher" than this sphere's surface will show up.

A couple of caveats.

This map is only as accurate as the original bump map is.

None of Antarctica is shown, even though some of its dry land would be above the 80 meter level. The bump map I had access to included the thickness of the ice sheet. and rather than trying to guess as to what shape it would take, I just eliminated it.

Mercedes Benzene · November 25, 2006

Amazing as usual Janus. :(

Unfortunately.... the prospect is quite freightening. I would hate to see this happen, but unfortunately it seems more and more likely every day.

Stupid humans.

Jay-qu · November 25, 2006

But if it did happen even though it wouldnt be in our life times, its good to know that it doesnt take out the entire planet, or even half of it for that matter. The real problem is that most cities are placed by the ocean :(

Mercedes Benzene · November 26, 2006

The real problem is that most cities are placed by the ocean

I'm currently emailing Congress, urging them to have New York and DC moved to Nebraska. :cup: :cup: :cup: :lol: :lol:

Turtle · November 26, 2006

I'm currently emailing Congress, urging them to have New York and DC moved to Nebraska. :cup: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I heard they are at least moving a good part of DC to Denver as we type. :eek:

I watched Waterworld several times and enjoyed it as well as found practical precautions to follow. I am working on plans for that automatically unfolding kite-sail launched from a tube, and I tatooed my grandaughter's back with a world map. Now if I can just find some resin. :cup:

PS Props on the map construction Janus! :cup:

Janus · November 26, 2006

The real problem is that most cities are placed by the ocean :cup:

Yeah. Here's a shot showing just that. All those bright little lights are cities that would be under water.

(I mapped one of those "the Earth at Night" images onto the sphere. Leaving the oceans dark let them show up.

Mercedes Benzene · November 26, 2006

Yikes.

Zythryn · November 26, 2006

Fascinating Janus, thanks for creating and posting those globes.

I wonder which 'tipping point' we will reach first.

The tipping point of the global climate?

Or the tipping point where enough people see through the 'global warming isn't our problem' crowd that we can get something done?

Janus · November 26, 2006

But if it did happen even though it wouldnt be in our life times, its good to know that it doesnt take out the entire planet, or even half of it for that matter.

Not in our lifetime, nor for several lifetimes for that matter. Even with man's help, it is likely to take thousands of years for it warm up enough for the all the ice on Earth to finally melt.

So we are unlikely to have any actual cities under water (again, as in Worldworld, where he dives down to a flooded Denver.) The cities will just migrate inland as the water slowly rises. As waterfront buildings age and are torn down they will just be replaced with buildings a little further inland as time goes on.

This is not to say that Global warming is not a problem, it doesn't take ice cap melting changes in temperatures to cause changing weather patterns which can then result in failed crops, increased incidences like Katrina, etc.

Turtle · November 26, 2006

Just wondering Janus, how hard would it be to make a model like this for an ice age scenario? Sea levels lower by a couple hundred feet for example.:)

Janus · November 27, 2006

Just wondering Janus, how hard would it be to make a model like this for an ice age scenario? Sea levels lower by a couple hundred feet for example.:thumbs_up

The trick would be to find a good bumpmap of the ocean floor. (or a topo map that I can convert to a bump map.) So far the only such map I've been able to find is in the wrong projection.

Janus · December 1, 2006

Just wondering Janus, how hard would it be to make a model like this for an ice age scenario? Sea levels lower by a couple hundred feet for example.:)

Okay, I found a bathymetric image that I could use. Below is the result. Note that I did not include the arctic ice cap in the model, as I wanted to emphasize the actual landmasses above sea level. Also note that but for a couple of narrow straits between Greenland and Norway, the Artic ocean would be completely land-bound.

Ice agehttp://home.earthlink.net/~parvey/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/iceage.jpg[/img]

Turtle · December 9, 2006

Okay, I found a bathymetric image that I could use. Below is the result. Note that I did not include the arctic ice cap in the model, as I wanted to emphasize the actual landmasses above sea level. Also note that but for a couple of narrow straits between Greenland and Norway, the Artic ocean would be completely land-bound. ]

Wow! Nice work Janus; many thanks. :bow: :D :mad: :xx: