Table of Contents
- 1 What if the oceans were desalinated?
- 2 Where does the ocean water go when sea levels drop?
- 3 What would happen to the sea level if every boat in the world was removed out of the ocean at the same time?
- 4 Could we pump ocean water inland and desalinate it?
- 5 Why do sea levels keep dropping in Australia?
What if the oceans were desalinated?
A litre of seawater contains around 35g of dissolved salt, so desalinating the entire ocean would involve removing 45 million billion tonnes of salt. The sudden reduction in weight pressing on the seabed would probably trigger earthquakes and volcanoes around the globe.
What would happen if the ocean was fresh water?
All of the organisms in the sea are adapted to saltwater. If they were suddenly immersed in freshwater, too much water would diffuse into their bodies and they would die. Not only have those organisms been destroyed, but massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane have been released into the atmosphere.
Where does the ocean water go when sea levels drop?
Geological influences
| Long-term causes | Range of effect | Vertical effect |
|---|---|---|
| Change in volume of ocean basins | ||
| Vertical and horizontal motions of crust (in response to fault motions) | Local effect | 1–3 mm/yr |
| Sediment compaction | ||
| Sediment compression into denser matrix (particularly significant in and near river deltas) | Local effect |
How much do all the boats in the ocean raise the sea level?
2,000 years ago, Archimedes showed that these ships would push aside about two billion tonnes of water. When you spread this over the surface area of all the oceans on Earth (about 360 million square kilometres) you end up with the sea level rising just six millionths of a metre.
What would happen to the sea level if every boat in the world was removed out of the ocean at the same time?
At that rate (normalized for seasonal variation and short-term fluctations), if you removed every ship from the ocean, the water would be back up to its original average level in 16 hours. Sea levels will likely rise a few feet by the year 2100.
What is happening to the sea level?
Willis said, “We thought that sea level changes were simply the ocean heating up and expanding or cooling and shrinking.” As global temperatures have increased, the oceans have expanded, ice has melted, and sea levels have crept upward.
Could we pump ocean water inland and desalinate it?
Just to pump ocean water inland and desalinate it would require an electrical grid far greater than the one Earth now devotes to all other uses. “It’s a desert for a reason,” said Lynn Fenstermaker, a research professor at Nevada’s Desert Research Institute.
What happens to water that is no longer in the ocean?
If the water was no longer in the ocean, then it must have ended up somewhere on land. It was not feasible for researchers to inspect every drainage basin, or examine water volume for every river across the globe. But they could try to find changes in weight around Earth.
Why do sea levels keep dropping in Australia?
So in order to make sea levels fall, the water had to be stored in a place where it didn’t reach the ocean for a long while. That place, it turns out, was Australia. “Australia is really unique,” said Fasullo.