Could rising sea levels caused by climate change be thwarted by digging a big hole at the bottom of the sea?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I’m not proposing this as an actual solution, it’s just a dumb idea. But if we dug a huge, wide hole at the bottom of the ocean, or maybe widened the Mariana Trench or something, could that extra space make the sea levels drop enough to keep the land from flooding?

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Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The energy required to lift that amount of rock from the seabed to above the surface would be impractical. But good news! It doesn’t need to be from the bottom of the sea, just a part below the desired waterline. So we can dig these big holes you want right off the coastline and then, as a bonus, use the materials as landfill to raise or extend the current coastline. Still wildly impractical, but much less so than digging at the bottom.

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- Demonmariner@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Next time I go to the beach I’m bringing a shovel, and will dig a hole just past where my feet get wet.
  
  I’m doing my part.
  
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- toothpaste_sandwich@thebrainbin.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Sounds like... Dykes. See: The Netherlands.
  
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  - Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It’s “dikes” in this case, and yes, you could use the stone for dikes or levees, but since most of it would be sedimentary rock I’m not sure how well it would work for the purpose: most sedimentary rocks are rather porous.
    
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Snailpope@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
To lower the surface of the ocean 1" you would need to move 1.1 billion cubic kilometers of dirt/rock. That’s 12 million MT Everests worth of material.

If you spread this evenly across the entire surface of the land, it would raise it by 7".

Is it probable? No Is it possible? Technically yes? But that’s purely hypothetical.

Sourse: Duck duck go AI and bad math so take it with a grain of crack

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- YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  take it with a grain of crack
  
  This is the best thing I've heard in a long time and I will be stealing it
  
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  - CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    The Irish version would also work here.
    
    “Take it with a grain of craic”
    
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- gigachad@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  1” = 2.54 cm
  7” = 17.78 cm
  
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- ns1@feddit.uk ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I have a grain of crack here for those who are interested.
  
  You don’t need to do many calculations to see that the AI has gone slightly wrong. Since water covers roughly twice as much of the Earth’s surface as land does, lowering the oceans 1 inch should raise the land by about 2 inches, assuming that the volume of dirt isn’t changed by the process of moving it.
  
  More precisely: Area of the oceans = 361,000,000 km^2^ 1 inch = 2.54cm = 0.0000254 km Volume of dirt = 361000000 * 0.0000254 = 9169.4 km^3^ Area of land on Earth = 149,000,000 km^2^ Height of dirt spread over land = 9169.4 / 149000000 = 0.0000615 km = 6.15 cm = 2.4 inches
  
  Not going to say how many Everests as estimates for the volume of Everest seem to be all over the place. But the point stands that it’s a huge amount of material making the idea somewhat impractical.
  
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Coopr8@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Possible yes, practical no. Effectively you would need to build a new sub-continant to have an appreciable impact on sea level. That said, you don't need to dredge from the low point in the ocean, all that matters is displacing solid material from below sea level to above sea level, so the best option would be to find a shallow sea with an existing archipelago of islands and build up from there making it a deep sea with the islands connected as a continent. Alternately you could go after reefs, despite the collateral damage, with the great barrier reef being the obvious choice, essentially pump up dredged sand from the surrounding ocean bed onto the reef to make new land, the reef has the advantage of being very shallow and stabilized with lots of surface area, so good for making lots of land if you don't mind being the architect of an ecological apocalypse of unprecedented proportions.

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Linsensuppe@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
You could dig a hole to the other side and wait till all the water has drained.

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Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The big problem is that the bottom of the ocean is a very very very long way down.

Better to take the Dutch solution and build dikes.

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- Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  There is no reason to build it at the bottom it would be equally effective build anywhere underwater
  
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  - Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    OP specifically used the words “the bottom of the sea” and “the bottom of the ocean”.
    
    And I stand by my comment that dikes are superior.
    
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Alsjemenou@lemy.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The weight of the removed soil would sink the land.

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- Coopr8@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Not if it was deposited on bedrock, or even if it wasn't if it was done in a way that works with the currents. There are many examples of artificial islands being built successfully.
  
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Hello_there@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Another way is to electrolyze the water into h and o. Some hydrogen will escape the atmosphere and not be recombined. Nonreversible process so gl with that.

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- AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  That’s… A lot of added gas. Pre-space-loss, it would probably feel something like Jupiter’s atmosphere
  
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PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Sure lol

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moonluna@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
A majority of water in the planet (magnitudes larger than all the surface oceans) is within the earth so digging a whole would not fix anything. Besides the sea levels aren’t rising.

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- MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Wrong. Now, shut up.
  
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  - moonluna@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Peons ever surprise me with their lack of understanding iere.org/where-is-most-of-the-water-on-earth-foun…
    
    Research and research some more on other sites, publications, scientific papers. More than 5 times of the earths water is underground. Also you’ve never saw anyone step outside and say “oh no, the water is up to my shoes now because the sea levels are rising” this even goes for people who live on beachfront properties.
    
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phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Well yeah, but you’d need to dig a crazy huge hole for that, probably the size of multiple mountains

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