Fiction versus reality

[Seeker]

Stephen Baxter is a SciFi author who writes, in my mind, very gloomy novels (yet I keep buying his books).

A few years back he wrote a book called "Flood" (and its sequel "Ark").

The idea behind Flood was that sea levels started rising and most scientists put this down to global warming (ice cap melt and thermal expansion). One scientist demurred saying levels were rising too fast, she theorised there was a source of water under the oceans that was "leaking" and she was proven correct. There was no stopping it.

Eventually, in the novel, the water covered the entire Earth. Mass migrations, starvation, euthanasia centres, cannibalism - it's all in there (I said it was gloomy).

What reminded me of his book was confirmation that an enormous store of water has been confirmed beneath the Earth's crust. More water than is in all the surface oceans.

https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/ocean-beneath-earth-crust-ringwoodite-2659707032

Let's hope it doesn't leak.

[admin]

I liked his Long Earth novels with Terry Pratchett

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[Ruffy]

When I saw the thread title, I expected it to be another mickey take of our glorious nations' political leaders :rolleyes:

Imagine my surprise at the content! I don't know whether to be happy or disappointed ;)

Back on topic: In the event of a leak, will the underground water flood out or will the surface water drain away?:confused:

[Seeker]

In the book it kept raising the sea level until there was no land left. The few survivors had a little ceremony on their boats when Everest disappeared under water signifying the last of the land.

The books he wrote with Pratchett were more optimistic (they had to be with Sir Terry as co-author).

[Ruffy]

In the book it kept raising the sea level until there was no land left. The few survivors had a little ceremony on their boats when Everest disappeared under water signifying the last of the land.

Dour stuff. I haven't read the book but the premise strikes me as badly flawed at a very basic level - I'm not convinced it stacks up mathematically or scientifically (not even to just a plausible sci-fi level):

1. The volume of water required to submerge the world to that extent would be vast compared to the volume available within the earth.
For example, current climate change estimates are that total melting of the polar ice caps would cause less than 100m of sea level rise. Everest is well over 8000m tall. That's a lot of space to fill

2. I'd have to research the calculation for whether steam could be compressed enough to be able to create sufficient volume of water if it escaped and condensed. Gut feel tells me unlikely - it'd certainly be very, very high pressure and temperature, hardly stable or long-term containable.

3. I think gravitational effects would mean any open voids below the surface would fill from outside so I can't see how water would flood from inside the earth out to the surface to any significant extent. (Any thermal pressure would release once open to the atmosphere and then the pressure would release, steam would condense and the water would trickle back down. Like existing extreme cloudbursts creating lots of rainfall, surface flooding generally recedes in time once the storm has passed.)