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If the ice caps got nuked

edited January 2008 in Everything Else
I'm working on the story for a comic I want to start which is set after world war three in a world somewhat like our own.
One of the things I wanted was to have people living on water which is slowly eroding the remainder of human civilization.
This lead to the idea of, during the war, the ice caps getting nuked, as a way of insuring that any survivors would never be able to recover.
My problem is that after thinking about it, the artificial melting of the ice caps has a myriad of consequences. The two big ones would be massive flooding and the poisoning of the sea (and flood areas) due to mass algae blooming in the much diluted salt water but things like increased cloud cover and huge change in local climates would also play a big part.

I know it may be a lot of thinking for just a starting comic but such things do interest me.
Anyway, what I'd like to know is, what other consequences of the sea rising somewhere between 20 and 60 meters (65 to 200 feet) could you foresee?
How would you personally live in a world after massive flooding and nuclear war?

Comments

  • I have no particular data to support what I'm about to say, so feel free to correct me if someone's actually modeled something like this scientifically.

    I suspect nuking the ice caps would actually not do all that much. A nuke would produce enough heat to vaporize or melt a chunk of ice, but it would re-freeze quickly. Plus, there's a problem of scale: it would take a very large number of nukes to actually melt, say, all of the Antarctic ice shelf at once. If you used, say, a sustained nuclear barrage to melt the entire ice cap, it would still start to reform once the explosions stopped. Plus, you'd have set off enough nuclear blasts in atmosphere that, really, flooding is the least of your worries.

    In order to have the ice caps melt *and stay melted*, you need a long-term increase in temperature. A nuclear holocaust would have the opposite effect: nuclear winter would set in, lowering the temperature on average and again contributing to the re-freezing of the poles.
  • edited January 2008
    I suspect nuking the ice caps would actually not do all that much.
    I'd tend to agree. There are volcanoes underneath the ice in Antarctica (I just read that, don't remember where...). Perhaps some technology that would weaken the ozone layer above the poles to increase the rate the ice melts?
    Post edited by am_dragon on
  • I'm not sure here (similarly to Alex) but would a nuke release more greenhouse gas and make the ice caps melt faster? That is, on top of the initial melting with the huge boom and all. So as cold as it would be, which would try to re-freeze the water, the extra greenhouse emissions would counteract that and the poles would continue to melt. So the water level would rise quickly a certain amount depending on the size of the nuke/explosion, and then continue like it is now, melting slowly.

    Again, this is just off the top of my head and has absolutely no proof.
  • I'm not sure here (similarly to Alex) but would a nuke release more greenhouse gas and make the ice caps melt faster? That is, on top of the initial melting with the huge boom and all. So as cold as it would be, which would try to re-freeze the water, the extra greenhouse emissions would counteract that and the poles would continue to melt. So the water level would rise quickly a certain amount depending on the size of the nuke/explosion, and then continue like it is now, melting slowly.
    I'm pretty sure that nuclear weapons don't release any of the greenhouse gases. Even if they did, I highly doubt they would burn a hole in the ozone from a single detonation. A more interesting idea would be to see how radiation would spread and the level of toxicity the caps would experience.
  • That would be interesting. Also, there would probably be runoff from the impact points flowing into the ocean, where it would not re-freeze. However, I doubt it would make a large amount of a difference. However, I think one could, with some well-placed powerful explosives, break off a floating or partially floating ice sheet in Antarctica. The sheet would then float away and would allow the adjacent ice sheets to flow into the ocean faster. Just an idea, but it might be possible.
  • ......
    edited January 2008
    First off, no way in hell the water levels will ever rise 60 meters.

    I agree with the others here that nuking the ice caps wouldn't do much. But of course this story will be fiction, so you could just do it and screw science. You could try a comet impact on Antartica. There's a 300 meter wide one passing us in July at a distance of what was it? Several earths? Skeptics Guide to the Universe talked about this one. That one could potentially create a really fucked situation if it hit Antartica, and, since it's a comet, it can contain all sorts of gasses that will fuck with the ozone enough to heat the earth up rapidly to making all the polar caps melt. Not talking about CO2 here, I mean the worse one, methane I think it was, but don't hang me on that. *searches*

    One minute research on Wikipedia shows it's indeed Methane. Just let a comet crash on an underground methane field releasing said methane in the atmosphere fucking the world.

    More research:
    The largest natural gas field is South Pars/Asalouyeh gas field, which is shared between Iran and Qatar. The second largest natural gas field is located in Novy Urengoy, Russia.
    Take your pick.
    Post edited by ... on
  • edited January 2008
    Damn, well there is an alien satellite involved so I may have that do the melting instead. I just wanted to have things feel a lot less "I needed x so I'm going to make y as an excuse". The satellite was originally meant to start the war by blowing the top off england.
    Comet might work but could it get through the sea and the amount of rock to get to a natural gas deposit?
    Could use a seismic weapon to set off a volcano under Antarctica. I'm thinking of having one of the major characters be part of a war in Antarctica for aforementioned satellite.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • Listen to the latest episode of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. They talk about this 300 meter wide comet and this smaller one (less than 100 meters wide) which crashed in Russia in 1908, iirc. It's said that that small comet exploded when it hit the atmosphere and did a lot of damage. Now take a 300 meter wide comet and let it actually crash right on top of a natural gas field (not in the sea of course), a crack to the gas field would be enough for the gas can get out. Or of course you could destroy the equipment pumping the gas up. Free shaft for the methane to go through.

    Good luck.
  • Ok, that is a good plan. The problem then is that natural disasters tend not to lead to wars. Especially as the massive global worming warming would be bad for everyone.
    Here are two big things I need to happen: Around 1994 a city in england gets blown off the map (or some other large explosion which can turn out to be the effects of an alien psychic super weapon) and at the same time something happens that causes the sea levels to rise a several meters. Also, some long standing military conflict between first world countries would be a bonus.
  • Ok, that is a good plan. The problem then is that natural disasters tend not to lead to wars.
    Unless it's called Advance Wars: Days of Ruin.
  • edited January 2008
    Only ice over land that melts would raise ocean levels. Any ice that's on top of the water would have no effect.
    Post edited by Kilarney on
  • Ok, that is a good plan. The problem then is that natural disasters tend not to lead to wars. Especially as the massive globalwormingwarming would be bad for everyone.
    American finally wants to end the war in Iraq and nukes it? Destroying the natural gas field and all that gas escapes into the atmosphere. Or a secret government conspiracy which shushed the cold war and said it was over whilst it was still going on, and America finally nukes Russia in 1994.

    Why 1994?
  • edited January 2008
    Why 1994?
    It's the right period in terms of technology for how I want to set things up. Mostly because the internet hadn't yet come to such prominence.
    I am sort of aiming for the cold war intrigue kind of things. One big problem is that logically Russia and America are closest to the north pole. That said, there isn't much close to the south pole.
    How about.. The world agrees that the Antarctic would be a good place to bury all nuclear waste as no humans live there and there is no chance of the ice melting and entering the sea water. In the background the governments of the world are messing around with an alien nuclear resonance device which accidentally causes all processed uranium to unexplainable go critical across the world. The device was designed as a way of making earth hospitable for said aliens (who sent it long before life on earth was established) who then turn up later on.
    Ok, scratch the bit about the nuclear explosions. The artifacts activation causes the major explosion in England and maintains the melting of polar ice. Hows that?
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • edited January 2008
    Yeah... you've got trouble with the North Pole ice. Most of the ice in the northern hemisphere is over water. Greenland and some other pockets being the exception.

    Here is what I would do:
    Russia and the US engage in nuclear testing. The testing sets of a massive chain of volcanic eruptions that belch greenhouse gases into the air on a scale never before seen. This in turn melts all of the ice.

    If you wanted to take it to the extreme (factoring in a large temperature rise), I could see the only inhabitable land in the southern hemisphere being high in the southern Andes mountains. They would struggle with finding land suitable for agriculture.

    Africa would be pretty much toast, maybe with one small pocket of humanity on top of mountains such as Kilamanjaro.

    Nepal and the surrounding areas would do well.

    Russia, Scandanavia (except Denmark) and Canada would do very well.

    The president and US military would retreat to Alaska, at least what's still above water. They also might invade Canada. The Soviets would then look to finish the US off with an attack from Siberia or over the pole.

    The problem is that both countries will be struggling to get the resources they need to attack the other.

    Hmm... I'm getting into this now!
    Post edited by Kilarney on
  • You said that an Alien artifact, presumably for planetary modification and colonization, would be activated, correct?

    Such a device, sent far in advance of a colonization fleet, would require an AI capable of determining indigenous lifeforms, their threat to the future colonists, and the strategic and tactical planning and operational capability to eliminate any and all threats to its creators.

    The satellite you mentioned could be part of this colonization system. In addition to the town in England that was destroyed, several other components could have landed on Earth. These devices would burrow down to the mantle at key points and cause increased volcanic activity and the release of major methane deposits both underground and the frozen fields on the seabed. The resulting spike in the Greenhouse Effect would destroy crops, raise sea levels as ice melts, and reduce the humans' ability to resist.
  • Katsu,

    That plot was used for an episode of StarGate a few years back.
  • At that time period, if you want a war between countries, you'd probably be better off with Russia. Sure, the Berlin Wall was down by then, the old guard was out, etc. However, you have a big explosion take out the leadership and then have the old guard use that as an excuse to blame the US (especially if it came from the direction of the US) and regain power and nukes will fly.
  • edited January 2008
    Katsu,

    That plot was used for an episode of StarGate a few years back.
    Well, damn. Is there nothing left that Star Trek or Stargate hasn't done?

    Still, that doesn't automatically disqualify it as a valid story idea. And if you want a war to be triggered, just have the ballistic trajectory of the probe which hit that English town lead back to an orbit above the Russian motherland.
    Post edited by Katsu on
  • Well, damn. Is there nothing left that Star Trek or Stargate hasn't done?
    Simpsons did it.
  • edited January 2008
    I've decided to scrap this whole thing and go with a more fantasy bent to the whole thing. I can't find the picture that inspired me but it's something like the world in the water from Spirited Away.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
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