Bedtime Facts (175/365)

in bedtime-facts •  6 years ago 

The Qattara Depression in northern Egypt could be flooded with seawater to alleviate sea level rise

By AlwaysUnite - CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The Qattara Depression Project was originally proposed by the German geographer Albrect Penck in 1912. He proposed that channels be dug from the Mediterranean to allow for the generation hydroelectric power. There would another potential benefit to letting seawater flood the basin which is about 60 m below sea level: the lowering of sea level and altering the climate of the adjacent regions to receive more rainfall. Because of its location, the artificial lake would have to be constantly refilled via the channels and it the evaporation would cause it to become hypersaline, ultimately leaving behind a vast salt flat.

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Wow that's a really freaky engineering idea. 'Freaky' because the it can actually work.

But what surprises me more is that a lot weather phenomenon have a logical explanations but none can truly be predicted. To suggest that in 1912 must've been beyond the cutting edge at that time.

Well, hydroelectric power was the motivation back then. And that rainfall would increase from having a large lake nearby is quite self-evident.

Very smart. It's a possibility that something like this and a few other ideas will be needed to help control the rising ocean.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

To be such a elemental project and since it was designed so long ago, what stops this project is the provision and of course the resources.

A significant rise of sea level should motivate a lot of parties to shell out significant sums of money to get it built. Hundreds of trillions of dollars of property is literally at risk of being washed away if nothing gets done.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

You said it "should"

How well that idea, and fixed from when you thought, others with vision of the future and many who stay in the past. Good information