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When will the Netherlands disappear?

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Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#161

Post by adventskalender »

mannykannot wrote: post #105
adventskalender wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? If such things have happened before, it seems dishonest to use such imagery to conjure a scenario of doom. Maybe the risk is now higher, more frequent, different, whatever. Fine, then tell me so, show me the numbers. I don't want to be manipulated with emotional imagery. I want to be informed. I don't read the news for entertainment. I mean yeah I do, but I actually want to read it for information.

So you want data, but the only datum you offer in support of your assertion that you are being unreasonably manipulated is the effect of a single storm in the 14th. century. Meanwhile, other people have been posting much more pertinent comments on, for example, the non-uniformity of global-warming-induced sea-level rise.

No the manipulation is the story about the abandoned settlement. I don't think you understood my point at all.

The only assertion I made is that land being lost to the sea is not a new or outlandish thing. For that 14th century is sufficient - and even better in context of global warming, as there was no such thing in the 14th century. Also I am not a journalist publishing an article. So I mentioned the first example I remembered. If I was publishing an article, I would do more research.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#162

Post by tda »

jacquesm wrote: post #119
tda wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed we won't be hit hardest or first, but consider this. Just about the entire Randstad is in a single "Dijkring" (Dijkring 14). And because a large part of the Randstad is flooded, if any part of the defense goes, it goes entirely. And as the Randstad is the economic heart of the country, the country will not recover. Also because it can't feasibly be evacuated. So flooding will happen in other places first, but…

I don't think that will happen that quickly. Yes, it is a single dijkring, but also one of the best protected ones. IJsselmeer is right next door giving a very nice way to get rid of a substantial amount of water with a very convenient canal system and the Oranjesluizen to make that happen. That would take care of a surface area the size of the city with 9 meters of so of water standing above it before this would be…

Yes, there are a few fringe areas that are likely to flood. But as we know that, that is not a problem. These areas are mostly uninhabited, have emergency procedures in place and are somewhat resilient (houses built on artificial mounds). Dealing with the known unknowns is relatively easy. Sometimes these areas flood, but seldom does it cause significant impact (loss of life, significant impact on economy). Taking into account all the known unknowns we have designed and built the greatest sea defense of history designed for 1:10.000 year conditions. And I am very confident this has been done properly (no expense spared).

I believe New Orleans was rebuilt with 1:100 year conditions in mind, and that was after Katrina. Nothing close to 1:10.000.

So are we safe then? A few years ago I would have said yes without a doubt. But now? It's the unknown unknowns I'm afraid of because they are by definition left out of the calculations to get to 1:10.000 year conditions, and we are only just beginning to discover what climate change really means. I'm afraid we "ain't seen nothing yet", and extrapolating from the past just won't cut it.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#164

Post by radicalbyte »

blunte wrote: post #151
perfunctory wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I wasn't alone I'd love to protest You are never alone. Find like-minded people and go ahead. (I am not saying whether I find it a good idea or not).

But the non-farmer protesters are getting arrested while the farmers are breaking plenty of laws (road/obstruction) and the government is afraid to touch them. Now the farmers are hanging nooses everywhere and trying to compare themselves with the Jews in WW2. I'm inclined to think that being forced to reduce your business production by 20-40% is not quite the same as being captured and put into a gas chamber to die.

I grew up in England in the 1980s, and if there was one thing which Thatcher did which was absolutely correct it was standing up to the Coal Unions.

The government needs to stand up to these thugs.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#165

Post by tda »

jacquesm wrote: post #37

It won't. NL has been preparing quite hard for a rise in sea level and/or worse storms. The port of IJmuiden is being overhauled, the shoreline defenses have all been raised, in some places only about 3 ft, in others much more depending on the likelihood of flooding. A bigger problem is that during an extended period of high water that the rivers won't be able to drain into the North Sea and studies are being made on…

Just did a little bit of a napkin calculation, how much energy would it cost to pump the entire flow of the Rhine 2m higher?

2m head difference, 20_000m3/s flow Due to head difference: 1000kg/m3 * 20_000m3/s * 9.8kgm/s2 * 2m = 392MW

Accelerating to 5m/s: 0.5 * 1000kg/m3 * 20_000m3/s * (5m/s)^2 = 250MW

That is at 100% efficiency. But knowing a modern container vessel has 60MW installed power, and a large coal powerplant (we should be closing those by the way) is about 1GW, this is in the order of magnitude of achievable. Biggest pumps I know of are 5MW (and for higher pressure/velocity, not low pressure/high flow) but if we really wanted to this could be solved

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#166

Post by radicalbyte »

tda wrote: post #160
joelbluminator wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time anything like this came close was a freak storm in 1953 as far as I know - 2000 dead in the Netherlands (also 200 dead in UK). Since then sea defenses have been improved by a huge factor, nothing was left to chance. I just don't see the kind of freak event that can cause this (and why would a freak storm hit the Randstad and not New York / London / San Francisco ?). If you're talking about gradual sea l…

thing is cat 5 hurricanes happen every year (and are thus not freak storms), just not here. In the parts of the world where these happen, people tend not to live below sea level so even poor islands eventually recover after being hit. Extrapolating form the current climate the probability for cat5 hurricane winds in NL is about zero, cause the mechanisms that cause these kinds of storms don't apply here. But as the c…

The British Isles form a big protection block for the country from the worst weather coming form the ocean.

Also, if the sea level rise is caused by ice melting on the North Pole the rises will be countered considerably by the earth's crust rising due to the mass being removed from it.

Sea level rises are scary - and are part of the reason I don't live in Amsterdam / Utrecht / Rotterdam - but that shouldn't be the thing to scare us.

Food shortages and the wars this will fuel will be a problem long before the sea causes the dykes to fail (and my assumption is that said dykes are part of what makes The Netherlands almost impossible to defend).

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#167

Post by joelbluminator »

tda wrote: post #160
joelbluminator wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time anything like this came close was a freak storm in 1953 as far as I know - 2000 dead in the Netherlands (also 200 dead in UK). Since then sea defenses have been improved by a huge factor, nothing was left to chance. I just don't see the kind of freak event that can cause this (and why would a freak storm hit the Randstad and not New York / London / San Francisco ?). If you're talking about gradual sea l…

thing is cat 5 hurricanes happen every year (and are thus not freak storms), just not here. In the parts of the world where these happen, people tend not to live below sea level so even poor islands eventually recover after being hit. Extrapolating form the current climate the probability for cat5 hurricane winds in NL is about zero, cause the mechanisms that cause these kinds of storms don't apply here. But as the c…

None of this seems likely. It's like moving out of San Francisco because an earth quake might happen. Even if a freak hurricane arrives (it shouldn't since the waters aren't tropical, but whatever lets say this somehow changed in the next 50 years), even if, you'd have weeks to evacuate people, so casualties shouldn't be too high. Infrastructure would be damaged yes, but doesn't seem to me like something that devastates the country. The water will eventually be pumped out. And btw what do the once in 10000 years storm defense are preparing for if not just that?

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#168

Post by brij0102 »

jacquesm wrote: post #117
sailfast wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - I'd say most of the world will be in deeper trouble than the Netherlands since they've been completely ignoring these issues. Most of the coast of Florida comes to mind. The number of homes on small canals that connect directly to the ocean is mind-boggling. Further, in a worst case scenario where you need to lose a lot of arable land, the Netherlands has zoned itself so that you could "afford" to lose that…

> At a certain point I see the Dutch putting soil on barges topped by greenhouses and growing on top of the water if it came to that haha. Stop laughing, that's been done: https://www.floramedia.com/netherlands/2017/01/11/floating-g...

Interesting! Does this handle storms? I suspect we'll see a lot more storms and much higher waves along with the increase in sea level ...

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#169

Post by markvdb »

the-dude wrote: post #28
blunte wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have quite a history of trying to keep the sea out of their land, and that history has plenty of big failures. It all goes well until it doesn't, and then it's a big deal. It doesn't require speculation to recognize this pattern, even if we can't predict the failure events accurately.

Do you have any specific examples of this ? ( I know of the 1953 flood, a combination of high tide and storm ). But if there is plenty, I really would want to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeftinghe

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#170

Post by WJW »

jacquesm wrote: post #103
tech-no-logical wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the requirements say 7 meters (the sea level rise if greenland is ice free) building higher dikes will not work. and although that is a long-term scenario, it is not unlikely. hence the 'not if, but when' in the article.

Why won't dikes not work?

I wonder about this too. We have several dikes already that are much higher than seven metres. From everything I hear, we're not anywhere near the limits of feasible dike height, not in terms of engineerable strength nor in economic feasability (they're mostly just earth walls, after all).
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