Continents of the future

[MackemX]

I was just watching TV program about the earth and saw a quick animation of the future movement of the continents

a simple Google and this was the first result that had a little animation

http://www.scotese.com/futanima.htm

surely we all can't be coming together? and I see that the UK goes way up North

[BJ_M]

1000 years from now - very very likely .......

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Europe

Scandinavia, Spain, Brittany and Normandy are now islands, and the northern plain is gone, from Belgium to Murmansk. So are Athens, Venice, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Helsinki, St. Petersburg. Other cities like Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Warsaw survive, but are now coastal: their rivers are saltwater sounds or estuaries. Even far-inland cities like Madrid and Moscow are subtly changed--Moscow's just a hundred miles from an arm of the sea.

Europe's climate is mild and maritime--the harsh continental winters of the east are gone, for the old continent is gone--Eurafrasia's broken up like Pangea before it.

The Gulf Stream sinks in the mid-Atlantic now, overlain by lighter fresh water from the rivers of new-thawed Greenland and North Canada. But a second warm current helps the Gulf Stream keep Europe mild: it circles Europe, north from the twin straits of Gibraltar and Midi (between Spain and France), through the Albion Archipelago (the maze of small islands that were once western France, Ireland and Britain), northeast around Scandinavia and the Isle of Saami through both the Arctic and the Baltic, and south into the new Ob Sea just east of the Ural Range, through the long, narrow Turgay Strait into the Aral Sea, then west to the Caspian and Black Seas, south through the Bosporus and Izmit Straits into the Mediterranean, and west again to close the cycle.

Besides keeping what's left of Europe warm and maritime, this loop's had an unexpected effect on marine life--while the mixing of species caused some extinctions, overall biomass is way up. The inland seas desperately needed this flushing action. The influx of Indian Ocean water from the reinvigorated Red Sea through the Suez Strait also adds species, warmth and nutrients, changing the eastern Mediterranean from a near-desert sea to a rich one. Nile silt, pushed by the twin currents, can't settle in the delta, but forms a long nutrient plume to the west, breaking up into smaller whorls only in the straits south of Sicily. Farming may shift far north in the new Europe, but fishing will move south. And inland, of course.

Way, way inland.


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AFRICA

The Mediterranean has grown at the Sahara's expense--not that anyone's crying over it. A 1000-kilometer strip of dry coast, from Alexandria in Egypt west to Bengazi in Libya, is now a long, low island like a huge Crete or Cyprus, whose northern slopes are covered with olive groves. Inland, a chain of oases and sinkholes from Cairo to Libya has flooded, forming a broad but shallow and twisting sound. Its African shore is semidesert, much like the old coast, but up to 300 kilometers further south.

A second, L-shaped sound cuts through Tunisia. Here, too, the vastly enlarged sea with its stronger currents and increased "fetch" for storms, keeps the coast around the sound Mediterranean though hot. The true desert skulks well inland these days, waiting its climatic chance...

Morocco's climate remains Mediterranean, but its southern valleys bordering the old Sahara have permanent streams draining into a string of lakes in the desert, then southwest to the sea. Further south, the coast is scrubland and savanna, broken up by arms of the sea, seasonal lakes and marshes. Inland from the great port of Atar is immense, shallow Lake Mauritania, home to millions of waterbirds. Sahelian grassland cups the lake, not desert.



To the south is Senegal Sound, a vast irregular gulf with wooded shores, drowning Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and southern Mauritania, even nibbling at Mali 500 kilometers inland. Beyond, not only the Guinea Highlands but a broad strip of West Africa from Timbuktu to the sea of Chad has reverted to rainforest, since tropical rainstorms now penetrate much further north. The Sahel grassland has also crept inland following the rains: so the very heart of the old Sahara is now a dry-grass steppe, with seasonal streams fed by rain in the now-forested central ranges of Ahaggar, Tibesti and Jebel Marra. Green strips snake down to the Niger, the Nile, and the sea of Chad. Chad is now the largest lake in Africa, possibly the world: in a wet year it rivals the old Caspian Sea.

The West African coast is now as lush as our Congo, though it's broken by two more large gulfs in Ghana and southern Nigeria. The rainforest stretches through Cameroon and the Congo, even south into Angola, though the mountains of Angola and Namibia confine the strengthened tropic storms to the coast and highlands. The Namib Desert now resembles Southern California, with occasional rains and coastal fog, supporting more life, but only intermittent surface streams. Inland, the Kalahari Desert's shrunk to a north-south strip only a few hundred kilometers wide. Ephemeral lakes and mud pans like Etosha are now permanent, fed by streams from the newly forested mountains to the west. The eastern Kalahari is now grassland, broken by a chain of great reedy lakes like Okavango and Makgadigadi. Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are largely savanna.



The South African plateau is a bit grassier but not profoundly changed, though Cape Town will now have to be renamed Island Town. The rest of the southern coast remains fairly intact, though its famous Californian climate now has summer thunderstorms. Not a full monsoon pattern, but a double rain-peak.



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AUSTRALIA

Not much needs to be said -- it is only AUSTRALIA after all



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NORTH AMERICA

Alaska is fertile, ecologically diverse, and a crossroads for both land and sea trade. Dense redwoods line the coasts, but oaks stud grassy hills inland in the Yukon basin, between the Brooks and Alaska ranges. The savanna corridor leads all the way to Mexico, though much broken up by wooded mountains, canyons, and local rainshadow deserts.

Puget Sound is now an inland passage from central Oregon all the way to Canada; the sea laps at the feet of the Cascade volcanoes. The Central Sea of California has returned, too, bringing coastal fog and mild climate to the Sierra foothills. Coast and Sierra redwoods would grow within shouting distance, except the Sierra species has crept higher and higher up the warming slopes. The populations of the Bay Area and LA did the same: the two megalopoli simply climbed their hills, changing shape, but losing no more than half their populace to the new foothill towns.

Inland, the Bonneville Sea is back, as is huge Lake Lahontan in Nevada and a dozen others in Death Valley, Owens Valley and their neighbors, snaking through a patchwork of prairie, forest, mountain and canyon, greener than our West; more like East Africa at the dawn of man. Early in the warmup, this region suffered catastrophic droughts, but as the sea rose, tropical storms began sweeping up from the Gulf of Mexico and the Sea of Cortez.

Climb the Colorado Rockies and look down on the plains. Below is a thicket, a sea of scrubby trees and brush, all the way to the Gulf. To your left is the southern tip of the great grass sea--it's moved north, into Canada, stretching all the way to the Arctic Sea.

Not that either sea is all that far away.


The Arctic Sea's many shallows are rich kelp forests now. Northern Canada's maze of isles and channels is home to many diverse cultures, seeded by the millions of refugees Canada generously let in early in the Great Flood. The mainland was also heavily settled, of course, but integrated more quickly into the new Canadian polyculture. The soil over much of the north was scraped away by the glaciers, of course, requiring much work to rebuild; but with rock, rain, sun and desperation, anything can be done. Greenland really is green now. It's a jagged arc of mountains cupping a shallow sea.

Greenland has changed the most. If you sail west from Iceland your first glimpse could convince you otherwise, for icy peaks still loom above the coasts, especially in the east. But the jagged fjords are lined with dense fir and redwood these days. And inland, over the mountains, is a cool, sheltered gulf, like the old Baltic Sea. The north end still freezes over occasionally in winter, being still water off the northernmost land in the world. But that's all. No bergs, no extensive floes. Greenland and Alaska's modest mountain glaciers are the last traces of the Ice Age in the northern hemisphere. Here inside the Arctic Circle, elk graze and cougars hunt, where ice stood two miles high. Brown bears forage for berries where their white cousins stalked seals on ice. Only a few polar bears transplanted to Antarctica survive--and they haven't thrived even there.

Let's follow that honored American tradition of slighting Canada, and fly south, just glancing out the window at the endless farms and cities of Hudson Bay and Quebec, the East Coast's population center, and instead tour what's left of the United States.



New England's now an island, cut off by the St. Lawrence and the narrow Hudson Straits. I won't dwell on the view from the Hudson Palisades, looking out at the great rust-red towers rising from the sea--it's such a clich�, repeatable all the way from Toronto to Boston to Washington. Instead let's admire Niagara Falls pouring into the sea. No, no, I exaggerate--it's still a good five miles from the beaches of Ontario Sound.

We shouldn't be surprised to find that Florida now has no governor--or voters. It's a scuba paradise rivaling Australia's Barrier Reef, but there's no dry land at all. Louisiana was doomed too, of course, but I was startled to find that the sea swallows half Alabama too--south of Tuscaloosa, only Red and Grove Islands and the small Troy Peninsula are left. Mississippi is even worse off--the Gulf chews inland to Tupelo and Mantee, leaving only the Jackson Peninsula and Brookhaven Island, and a jungly strip up at the Tennessee border. Mississippi Bay nibbles all the way up into Illinois, though it's broken up on the west side by long Crowley Island and the Spring and Pleasant Isles. Further south, in Texas, fishermen avoid the rotting, polluted Houston Reefs. But Austin survives--with a steamy coastal climate, flora, and culture resembling lost New Orleans.

Unfortunately, Dallas survives too.





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SOUTH AMERICA

From Panama to Cape Horn, South America's west coast is wetter. In the north, the long Atrato Sound and the new bays around Buenaventura are quite rainy, while the Peruvian coast is scrub and grass with treelined streams. The Atacama Desert is still dry, but resembles Baja or Sonora more than the utterly rainless Marscape of our time.

Looming above, the Andes are greener. Lake Titicaca has grown, and has five huge sisters: Poopo, Coipasa, Uyuni (larger than Titicaca), Atacama, and Arizaro--together some 60,000 square kilometers of water. These and hundreds of smaller lakes moderate the climate of the Altiplano--it's still a cold windy land, but the treeline's crept up and the grass is richer.



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ANTARCTICA



The coastal Princess Ranges ring the plain, forcing dense precipitation to fall on their slopes. This lush, cool forest strip, often less than 100 km wide, endures months of winter darkness, but looks more like Norway or British Columbia than Siberia--the winter freezes are never severe. The rivers teem with salmon, feeding huge grizzly bears, and even the rare Antarctic tiger.

Further east, past the rugged mountains around Amery Bay, the strip widens as the mountains curve inland and spread into a great highland: the Gamburtsev Range. The largest patch of glaciers in the world cling to these peaks, not continuous like Greenland, but a maze of white ridges and green tundra valleys where mammoth and caribou graze: the hundred-eyed Argus Icefield. It's so big, if it melted, the sea might rise one last meter.

Maybe even one and a half.

[Grimey]

Aw crap, it looks my house(not to mention all of Vancouver) is underwater

[MackemX]

I remember seeing a program about global warming and a lot of the coast of the UK is under threat of being underwater even in 100 years time