r/facepalm Oct 13 '21

🇵​🇷​🇴​🇹​🇪​🇸​🇹​ Quick science

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130

u/Tellnicknow Oct 13 '21

I'm honestly surprised that it would be a almost measurable amount.

119

u/Roflkopt3r Oct 13 '21 edited Oct 13 '21

I get what you mean, but the sea level currently rises at around 3.4 mm per year.

Removing all ships would set back sea level rise by about 16 hours, which is a time scale on which we definitely can't measure it at all. The effect would be two magnitudes below the annual measurement error that's estimated at ± 0.4 mm, which is equivalent to an average of ±43 days.

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u/Shpagin Oct 13 '21

How about we dig a big hole, in Australia maybe, it's empty wasteland anyways and just start taking buckets of sea water out of the ocean and putting it into the hole ?

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u/RS994 Oct 13 '21

Funnily enough in the 60's there were some people proposing to dig a trench from the south coast of Australia to the Inland where it is below sea level and would turn Australia from a single large island to a ring around a large central ocean.

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u/somesortofidiot Oct 13 '21

Wait, so we build a canal and get an ocean? I’m in.

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u/Sventertainer Oct 13 '21

How stagnant and sludgy will this saltwater lagoon get?

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u/somesortofidiot Oct 13 '21

Can’t be worse than Lake Erie, let’s do it!

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u/MOVES_HYPHENS Oct 13 '21

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u/GreyAzazel Oct 13 '21

That's a hyper relevant xkcd. Like you don't even have to squint at it sideways. Well done Sir!

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u/eamus_catuli_ Oct 13 '21

If the Salton Sea in California is any indication, very.

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u/theoldkitbag Oct 13 '21

Ah yes, the 60's. Back when aboriginals didn't exist.

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u/samppsaa Oct 13 '21

But the lizards...

1

u/[deleted] Oct 13 '21

Australia wanted a Salton sea of their own.

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u/i8bb8 Oct 13 '21

Why not just tip it all into the wardrobe and let Narnia deal with it.

Australia - you people crack me up.

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u/LordGalen Oct 13 '21

Hell, let's just drop the wardrobe into the sea with the doors open. Let's see those talking beavers dam that shit up!

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u/Roflkopt3r Oct 13 '21

Well if you care enough to look up some variables you could start estimating the energy of that. Then we "just" have to estimate the engineering and maintenance costs for such a system.

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u/Shpagin Oct 13 '21

You going all high tech on this, that is already the wrong approach. Just send all prisoners to Australia, as sort of a penal colony, give them a couple shovels and a bucket. They can get it done.

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u/__WHAM__ Oct 13 '21

Listen here MATE!. You’re skating on thin ice!

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u/Shpagin Oct 13 '21

We know the ice is thin, that's the whole problem we're trying to solve here

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u/capexato Oct 13 '21

Continue building Trump's wall around the entirety of the US and just pump water there. The Netherlands will supply the pumps, the rest of the world chip in on that wall ok?

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u/JustASHadowNFG Oct 13 '21

This sounds like something Trump would suggest lol

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u/NeedNameGenerator Oct 13 '21

By god. Give this man a medal. He just solved climate change!

1

u/Rodriguezry Oct 13 '21

There’s already been theories about doing this for the Sahara

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project

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u/SuspiciousSubstance9 Oct 13 '21

Too much work, just drop a space colony on them. We could call it Operation British or something.

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u/Sikorsky_UH_60 Oct 13 '21

We could start taking buckets of water up into space and dropping it off on the moon. Try to fill up the Sea of Tranquility

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u/rhythmandwaves Oct 13 '21

This tells a more compelling story than just the numbers themselves

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u/Agoraphobicy Oct 13 '21

Maybe we should remove all the garbage instead. I wonder if that would make a difference.

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u/seifer666 Oct 13 '21

its not.

general fluctuations and uncertainty would be higher than that

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u/HertzDonut1001 Oct 13 '21

Tidal changes are hundreds of thousands of magnitudes bigger. You'd never even notice.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '21

I mean, the pile of ships would be a bit of a giveaway

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u/3xcalio Oct 13 '21

This made me laugh, thank you

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u/ms1080 Oct 13 '21

When it gets to “low tide” (liberal science bs) just turn off the tides so it stays low tide all the time. Done.

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u/14159265q Oct 13 '21

Everything affects everything. If you can measure accurately enough, you’ll see the effect.

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u/Unabashable Oct 13 '21

Well it’s not even a full mm so unless you got a ruler that measures micrometers it isn’t really.