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Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

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Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#91

Post by Balero »

Scoundreller wrote: post #70
Balero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the energy used pumping the water from the quite low lakes, over the Rocky Mountains and Sierras to the west coast be less than a desalination plant? Another option is just moving the water usage closer to the usable water.

Most likely only a little bit would actually be piped. You’d just stop water from entering one watershed and send it into another and let gravity do its work. You would lose more to evaporation; but that happens to water in pipes too if they’re above ground. Would love to see the numbers. It’s fun looking at rivers from the Rocky Mountains in California that don’t make it to the ocean anymore. I recently proposed a t…

Good point about the river re-direction.

> I recently proposed a transatlantic natural gas pipeline and people thought I was insane, but it would only be ~5x longer than the longest existing underwater natgas pipeline, which doesn’t sound impossibly viable.

Nordstream is 759 Miles. Newfoundland to Ireland is 1900 Miles!

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#92

Post by throwaway894345 »

lettergram wrote: post #71
godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in south west Michigan and absolutely took them for granted. After almost 5 years in Austin we decided to come back to Michigan with the birth of our first child. I missed the lakes terribly, just totally took for granted that not everywhere has fresh water surrounding them on all sides. In this climate change age, being close to so much fresh water really helps calm my nerves knowing that I am in a spot th…

> In this climate change age The Great Lakes only exist because the massive ice sheet melted and left the lakes as a deposit some 10-15,000 years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few thousand years the lakes largely dissipate. That said I grew up near the lake, definitely something that’s awesome to live near

If this is true ("only b/c of melting ice sheet; will dissipate in next few thousand years") then wouldn't we expect water levels to be continuously dropping? Seems more likely that they exist because rain/meltwater makes its way to the basin and keeps them filled (irrespective of whether or not they were originally filled with meltwater from the ice sheet 15kya).

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#93

Post by 83 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #70
Balero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the energy used pumping the water from the quite low lakes, over the Rocky Mountains and Sierras to the west coast be less than a desalination plant? Another option is just moving the water usage closer to the usable water.

Most likely only a little bit would actually be piped. You’d just stop water from entering one watershed and send it into another and let gravity do its work. You would lose more to evaporation; but that happens to water in pipes too if they’re above ground. Would love to see the numbers. It’s fun looking at rivers from the Rocky Mountains in California that don’t make it to the ocean anymore. I recently proposed a t…

I feel the transatlantic gas pipe wouldnt be viable just for the fact that Russian subs/ships would have a field day "accidentally" setting anchor on it and breaking it to keep their economy relevant.

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#94

Post by nickysielicki »

crystoloxy wrote: post #64
godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in south west Michigan and absolutely took them for granted. After almost 5 years in Austin we decided to come back to Michigan with the birth of our first child. I missed the lakes terribly, just totally took for granted that not everywhere has fresh water surrounding them on all sides. In this climate change age, being close to so much fresh water really helps calm my nerves knowing that I am in a spot th…

OT: So many folks find themselves moving “home” when kids arrive, for a variety of reasons. As someone considering doing the same I’d be curious to hear yours. I spent last summer in the Midwest (on a lake) and I found it first comforting (no fire season!) and then distressing as the rains failed to come and smoke eventually arrived instead. One of the driest summers I can recall. P

Pick your poison. Last summer was great because the lack of moisture meant a lack of mosquitoes which meant more enjoyable outdoorsing. I went an entire trip in the boundary waters without using bug spray. Unbelievable!

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#96

Post by cmrdporcupine »

causi wrote: post #67
godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in south west Michigan and absolutely took them for granted. After almost 5 years in Austin we decided to come back to Michigan with the birth of our first child. I missed the lakes terribly, just totally took for granted that not everywhere has fresh water surrounding them on all sides. In this climate change age, being close to so much fresh water really helps calm my nerves knowing that I am in a spot th…

I wouldn't bet too much on that. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-16/the-great...

It's a good article, and I think it's right that things could get much worse here. But it's missing the point, or avoiding it, that things are going to get much much worse in some other places, in particular the US and Canadian west. Record forest fires followed by record floods in BC last year were a bit of a taste of the future, unfortunately.

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#97

Post by skeeter2020 »

crystoloxy wrote: post #64
godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in south west Michigan and absolutely took them for granted. After almost 5 years in Austin we decided to come back to Michigan with the birth of our first child. I missed the lakes terribly, just totally took for granted that not everywhere has fresh water surrounding them on all sides. In this climate change age, being close to so much fresh water really helps calm my nerves knowing that I am in a spot th…

OT: So many folks find themselves moving “home” when kids arrive, for a variety of reasons. As someone considering doing the same I’d be curious to hear yours. I spent last summer in the Midwest (on a lake) and I found it first comforting (no fire season!) and then distressing as the rains failed to come and smoke eventually arrived instead. One of the driest summers I can recall. P

I think every economic migrant I've ever met (myself included) talks about moving home realtively soon "I'm only here for 2/5/ I'm lucky enough to have two sets of family still back home, close enough to visit easily but far enough to make it meaningful and intentional. The desire to move back has weakened every year.

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#98

Post by cmrdporcupine »

TecoAndJix wrote: post #57
nemo44x wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess. I don’t miss them and always thought they were cold and smelly and didn’t make for great beaches. The weather around them is awful as well with long, bitter cold winters and summer days that are often extremely humid. You can’t really eat the fish out them either due to high levels of mercury. Additionally the land around the lakes is nice but not spectacular. At least not for North America. If I were to pla…

I have been to a Great Lake one time (Lake Erie) and it made me sad. The shore had a bunch of dead fish all over it and it smelled very bad. The person i was with, an Erie, PA native, said that the water was pretty much "dead". Very antidotal but if left an impression on me.

Erie is the worst of it because a) it's shallow b) it's warmest c) it is surrounded by intensive agriculture with underregulated fertilizer run-off. But there are actually some nice places along it.

Long Point on its north shore in southern Ontario is a fantastic beautiful beach.

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#99

Post by ycombinete »

hashamali wrote: post #73
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #16

Seas or not, I love the lakes and the land around them, in the 20+ years since I moved myself here they've taken over my heart. I'm from the aspen parkland of central Alberta; thin trees, dry air, small muddy leach-infested kettle lakes, big skies, poplar and birch land. When I was 8 we did a trip across Canada, and I remember us camping by the shores of Superior when a massive thunderstorm came rolling in, and it le…

This is beautifully written.

I couldn’t help noticing that as well! While reading it I was pining for lakes I’ve never seen in a country I’ve never been to.

Re: Are the Great Lakes really inland seas?

#100

Post by EForEndeavour »

throwaway787544 wrote: post #55
engineer_22 wrote: post #12

Not salty, not seas.

So is the great salt lake a sea?

I'm no hydrologist, but Great Salt Lake can stay a lake if you accept that salinity is necessary but not sufficient for a body of water to count as a sea. In other words: all seas are salty, but not all salty water bodies are seas.

Edit: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/differences-between-sea-...

> A sea contains only salty water, while a lake can contain either salty or freshwater

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