https://phys.org/news/2020-02-north-sea.html A dam right across the North Sea by Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Northern European Enclosure Dam: over 600 km longer than the Afsluitdijk, technically feasible, but primarily intended to show the scale of future interventions if climate change continues. Credit: NIOZ, Sjoerd Groeskamp A 475-km-long dam between the north of Scotland and the west of Norway and another one of 160 km between the west point of France and the southwest of England could protect more than 25 million Europeans against the consequences of an expected sea level rise of several metres over the next few centuries. The costs, 250-500 billion euros, are 'merely' 0.1% of the gross national product, annually over 20 years, of all the countries that would be protected by such a dam. That's what Dr. Sjoerd Groeskamp, oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, calculated together with his Swedish colleague Joakim Kjellson at GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany, published this month in the scientific journal the Bulletin of the American Meterological Society. "Besides being a possible solution, the design of such an extreme dam is mainly a warning," says Groeskamp. "It reveals the immensity of the problem hanging over our heads." Technically feasible "The construction of such a 'North-European Enclosure Dam' seems to be technically feasible," Groeskamp emphasises. more at link................
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-north-sea.html NEED The Northern European Enclosure Dam for if climate change mitigation fails: Abstract If climate change is left unmitigated the construction of a 637 km long Northern European Enclosure Dam (NEED) might be the most viable solution to protect Northern Europe against sea level rise. It might be impossible to truly fathom the magnitude of the threat that global-mean sea level rise poses. However, conceptualizing the scale of the solutions required to protect ourselves against global-mean sea level rise, aids in our ability to acknowledge and understand the threat that sea level rise poses. On these grounds, we here discuss a means to protect over 25 million people and important economical regions in northern Europe against sea level rise. We propose the construction of a Northern European Enclosure Dam (NEED) that stretches between France, the United Kingdom and Norway. NEED may seem an overwhelming and unrealistic solution at first. However, our preliminary study suggests that NEED is potentially favorable financially, but also in scale, impacts and challenges compared to that of alternative solutions, such as (managed) migrations and that of country-by-country protection efforts. The mere realization that a solution as considerable as NEED might be a viable and cost-effective protection measure is illustrative of the extraordinary global threat of global-mean sea level rise that we are facing. As such, the concept of constructing NEED showcases the extent of protection efforts that are required if mitigation efforts fail to limit sea level rise.
great idea lower the north and baltic sea levels and plow and plant doggerland if IF it can be done within the proposed budget............which seems unlikely?
Only works so long. As sea level rises even further, the window to empty the enclosed area gets shorter and shorter, and eventually the level has to rise with the ocean. Such dams already exist over many river mouths and they can only keep water levels somewhere in the vicinity of low tide, and eventually low tide will be significantly higher than current high tides.
What would happen if a hostile power bombed the dams? What damage would be caused to London for example?
Same as what happens now if the dams are damaged: Until repairs can be made, the area protected from them will be subject to normal tides and storm surges, just as they are now.
Yeah. This is what I thought of. If an area is protected by dams, then there will be pressure to use that land to build. So building will happen. Which puts an increasingly large area of both people and property in harm's way. It will be a magnet for terrorist attacks. Any you can't patrol every inch of it every minute.
You (and possibly geordief) seem to be under the impression that the dam will open up new land. It will not, any more that existing dams like that do. It would be like the Breezanddijk which protects the land within from above mentioned tides and surges, but opens up no new land. Contrast that with the Kinderdijk region which is all below low tide sea level and has this huge network of canals that are used to continuously drain the land, all water which at some point must be pumped out. Yes, you could flood it by bombing the dams that hold the nearby river out. That's all branches of the Rhine River delta on all sides. You can't do that with something as deep as the English Channel, especially with all the major rivers that run into it.
Right. That was sloppy on my part. A dam such as this would likely simply keep the rising seawater in check, not drain vast tracts of land dry. Still, I do think the existing - but now protected - shores would be infilled. They would be at risk, but not so much.
What would happen if,say the Thames barrier was destroyed when the water level was high? How much higher could such a barrier be built before we would be talking of huge amounts of physical and human damage in the event of an attack? Would a barrier like the one in the OP correspond to such a greatly increased "ordinary" barrier?
Well, nothing, since the Thames barrier is normally left open during high tide. It isn't a tide barrier, only a surge barrier. Yes, bombing anything has the potential of huge amounts of physical and human damage. That's sort of the point. Building the barrier does not worsen the effects of its destruction beyond the effects of not building it in the first place. I'm not sure which sort of barrier you consider to be 'ordinary'. Perhaps one of the two I linked above? Both of those are pretty extraordinary actually, not found elsewhere. Why do you think it's the Dutch coming up with the proposal in the OP? And while I'm on it, why do my links above not appear as links? They work, but you don't know they're there. I made them bold to at lest suggest a place to hover the mouse.
Don't know/have not learned. Maybe Tiassa can help as he seems to be the uber meister at that sort of thing.(I did spot your links btw)
