Rising sea levels - Global Warming or ???
By speakeasy
@speakeasy (4171)
United States
March 17, 2009 7:58pm CST
There has been a lot in the news for the past few years about "Global Warming". What causes Global Warming? What to do about Global Warming? What can we expect as the world heats up?
It is obvious that if the polar caps and glaciers melt; sea levels will rise up and land will be lost. This has already been happening. Delta areas have been disappearing and islands have been getting smaller. But, the rate that has been occurring is more rapid than scientists originally predicted with global warming. So, what else could be making the oceans rise?
Have you ever heard of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"? This was originally discovered in 1997 and is actually made up of the Eastern Pacific Patch and the Western Pacific Patch. One patch is between Hawaii and California and the other is between Hawaii and Japan. Early reports stated the Pacific Garbage Patch was larger that the state of Texas and some of the more recent estimates place the combined total of these two patches as one and a half times the size fo the continental US.
These patches are made up of floating plastic and other garbage that has migrated along various currents until they accumulated in these areas. These floating garbage heaps are estimated to be 100 ft (30 meters) deep.
Here is a link to a reputable, informative website - http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/10-the-worlds-largest-dump/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=
So, we have millions of tons of garbage floating in the ocean and "70% of garbage dumped in the ocean SINKS"; so, there is a lot more on the bottom of the ocean.
If you have a bucket of water and add junk to it the level of the water rises!
It may be possible to halt or decrease the rise of the sea level caused by global warming if we just remove the garbage from the ocean that has been accumulating.
(And, before you start blaming the US for this garbage problem - plastic trash found in these garbage patches did not just come from the US - a lot of it is clearly of Russian, Chinese, and Indian origin as well as from many other countries that have vessels sailing the ocean and who dump garbage off their own shores.
2 people like this
4 responses
@xfahctor (14113)
• Lancaster, New Hampshire
18 Mar 09
Bah, global warming. It is one of the biggest scams ever pulled. The planet warms, the planet cools and truthfully, we don't know why or even when it does it. There is no real evidence that points to any of it being man made and any of it that has been done has been soundly debunked as sanke oil. Don't fall for it. People are using the global warming hoax to push agenda and some are getting pertty rich off this myth.
@speakeasy (4171)
• United States
18 Mar 09
"It is one of the biggest scams ever pulled". Global warming IS happening. Even if our planet is just going through a warming cycle - the fact is it is doing it NOW. Polar caps are melting more each year and less new ice is being formed each winter. Glaciers are breaking off and getting smaller. The Northwest passage is now opening up each summer for the first time in centuries. Sea levels are rising and people in the US and other countries are losing their homes to rising sea levels NOW.
We can't "stop" the warming process; but, if we remove the garbage we have dumped in the oceans it could slow the rise of the oceans and possibly make enough of a difference to save someone's home.
@xfahctor (14113)
• Lancaster, New Hampshire
18 Mar 09
and if we removed all the garbage we have dumped in the oceans, we would have clean oceans, but it really would have no effect on the planets temperature. If you look at the temps on marse, they have shown a fluctuation too, not may SUV's or garbage filled oceans up there.
@LittleMel (8742)
• Canada
18 Mar 09
It's possible that people throw garbage to the river that in the end flows to the sea. I heard it happens a lot in poor countries because they have a lot of problems going on and not much money or time to take care of everything including sanitary issues. People don't realize what they have done, they just throw garbage anywhere they can and sometimes live among it. I'm not sure why countries with advanced technology do not pay attention to garbage throwing issue, though. Now how can we clean the bottom of the ocean? I never heard of any machine that can go to the very bottom, not even a submarine.
@speakeasy (4171)
• United States
18 Mar 09
Actually, it is all of the countries around the world that are at fault. This includes tiny polluters (individuals who do not properly dispose of trash and it blows into water) up to major polluters (companies, cities, and countries that dispose of trash by dumping it directly into the ocean). It was not that many years ago that New York City (and a lot of other cities around the world) used to send out "garbage barges" to dump trash directly into the ocean. I still remember pictures of one that made the news because it caught on fire within sight of the shoreline.
I would recommend starting with the trash that is floating around near the surface - like these two garbage patches. We catch fish in nets - we could "catch" a lot of this trash in nets.
Also, even though we cannot get down to the very deepest depths of the ocean, we can reach the ocean floor in a lot of places (we do it with off shore drilling all the time). I do not believe we will ever be able to get all the trash out of the ocean; but, we could get a lot of it out and we could stop putting more in.
@lilaclady (28206)
• Australia
18 Mar 09
You have a good point about the garbage I guess, I don't know why they just don't use the water in some way for the areas that are so short of water, I don't know if the salt can be taken out but to me it would be good for the areas like here in Australia which is very short of water..scary short of...
@speakeasy (4171)
• United States
18 Mar 09
There are desalinization plants that do take the salt out of sea water. Some have already been built and others should be built.
But, I am talking about people who are losing farmland and homes because the sea level is rising. This is happening all around the world right now. We can't keep the polar caps from melting; but, MAYBE if we removed all the garbage from the ocean it would help stop the water from continuing to rise.
Also, fish (which people eat) are eating this garbage and getting caught and dieing in it. Sound bad to me.
@snowy22315 (208890)
• United States
18 Mar 09
I never head of that before. I think that there are some people who can live with this and soem people who cant but I guess that we should really remove the trash because it cant be good for the ocean water. I guess there are many people who would volunteer to do it. I would.
@speakeasy (4171)
• United States
18 Mar 09
That is one of the big problems - most people aren't aware of it. The big news stories are about global warming and greenhouse gasses. But, this is important to and cleaning up the ocean might help alleviate some of the issues with global warming - flooding low lying areas.
It would also make the fish in the ocean safer to eat and more plentiful; because they cannot survive very long in and around these "garbage patches".
