Thread: Heading for the 'Water Age'?

This is just a theory i have about the way in which we (earth) are heading into the future.
It is quite obvious that the world is significantly changing the way it acts and looks. One obvious change is "Global Warming". The earth is heating up and the ice is melting at an alarming rate. I live near the south east coast of England and it has been said that in as little as 50 years the whole of east Anglia (south east England) will be underwater.

There are a lot of opinions and views on the reason and cause of global warming, one is that it is caused by 'Man' and pollution, And the other is that it is caused by a natural change in the earth.
Many years ago we had the 'Ice Age' in which a large amount of earth was well below freezing and covered in ice.
After a while the earth began to change and heat up, all the ice began to melt and changed dramatically, Eventually bringing us to the way in which the earth appears today.

So why can't it happen again? Maybe the earth has already began to slide into another change. Scientists have said that we are well over due for an ice age. But what if it started to happen in reverse? And the earth instead of cooling down, simply began to heat up. Melting all the ice that is left at the poles and turning into water.

Eventually the world would be massively covered in water. There is probably not enough to cover the earth 100% but i believe it could cover a good 90%+ of the world.

So, my theory is that we are heading for a new age, The 'Water Age'. We have all seen those cartoons and sci-fi films where they go to the future and everyone lives under water. Sure this is just 'Make believe' But what if it actually ends up coming true?
At the rate of which the world is changing we might all be underwater within say 150 - 200 years from now.

But hey... Just a theory ^_^

bye

-well i heard that 60% of glaciers are underwater, and ice takes up more space then water
-i think that as more water from antartica melts into the ocean the warm water being transported north by the currents will slow down and cause the northern hemispheres to cool down again, and mabye things will balance out again in 150 years

Originally Posted by Aiden2007

This is just a theory i have about the way in which we (earth) are heading into the future.
It is quite obvious that the world is significantly changing the way it acts and looks. One obvious change is "Global Warming". The earth is heating up and the ice is melting at an alarming rate. I live near the south east coast of England and it has been said that in as little as 50 years the whole of east Anglia (south east England) will be underwater.

There are a lot of opinions and views on the reason and cause of global warming, one is that it is caused by 'Man' and pollution, And the other is that it is caused by a natural change in the earth.
Many years ago we had the 'Ice Age' in which a large amount of earth was well below freezing and covered in ice.
After a while the earth began to change and heat up, all the ice began to melt and changed dramatically, Eventually bringing us to the way in which the earth appears today.

So why can't it happen again? Maybe the earth has already began to slide into another change. Scientists have said that we are well over due for an ice age. But what if it started to happen in reverse? And the earth instead of cooling down, simply began to heat up. Melting all the ice that is left at the poles and turning into water.

Eventually the world would be massively covered in water. There is probably not enough to cover the earth 100% but i believe it could cover a good 90%+ of the world.

So, my theory is that we are heading for a new age, The 'Water Age'. We have all seen those cartoons and sci-fi films where they go to the future and everyone lives under water. Sure this is just 'Make believe' But what if it actually ends up coming true?
At the rate of which the world is changing we might all be underwater within say 150 - 200 years from now.

But hey... Just a theory ^_^

bye

As a geologist I assure you that most of what you fear is baloney.

one point: stop using the word 'believe' and subsitute it with 'think'. Why do you 'believe' there is enough water to ...blah...blah... Have you done some secret study that is not privy to geologists and others?

1. What is the biggest cause of sea level rise in SE England?
Well that's a slightly misleading question because it is not so much that the sea is rising, but that the SE is sinking. The NW of Britain is rebounding after the ice caps that was weighing them down during the last glacial maximum melted them down, because mass must be conserved and the density of mantle material is not changing signifcantly, the South is sinking.

2. The north Atlantic Drift is about 2/3 wind driven. Therefore the NA drift won't turn off seeing as it is the wind that drives the oceans and not vice-versa. (It was a problem which troubled scientists for a while: what happens if you turn the winds off? They found through some complex logic that the oceans stop. What happens if you turn the oceans off? the winds keep going. Therefore the winds drive the oceans.)
Besides, it is not the NA drift that keeps Britain warm.
Also, even the people that do believe that if we somehow managed to turn the NA drift off then we would get colder still believe that this would only last maybe a couple of hundred yearrs at the most. Eventually the warmth will cause the surface waters to become so buoyant that mixing and vertical transport of heat pretty much stops and heat is concentrated at the surface === a warmer atmosphere.

Water could entirely cover all the land mass of the earth to a depth of about 1.3Km, BUT in order for this to happen the earth's surface would need to be 'smooth' ie no mountains, valley's trenches etc. I understand that it is plate techtonics that prevents this from happening. Total variation in the earth's solid surface is around 15 to 20Km (from the Tip of everest to the ocean trench).

Originally Posted by billiards

2. (It was a problem which troubled scientists for a while: what happens if you turn the winds off? They found through some complex logic that the oceans stop. What happens if you turn the oceans off? the winds keep going. Therefore the winds drive the oceans.)

good point

Ok well fair enough. To be honest i don't know alot about this stuff. All that i have written was just a weird made up theory in my head. Didn't do ANY research or anything. lol

You all know more than me. So if you say it isn't possible then who am i to argue ^_^

thanks for reading it anyway.