Picture: Get ready to Panic! Oroville, Willows, Marysville, and Sacramento will be underwater – the Sutter Buttes will be the only landmass in the very center of the valley.
“What If All the Ice Melts?” Myths and Realities is an article which features 3D computer generated images of what the globe would look like if all of the ice (both land and sea) on the planet melted, leading to a sealevel rise of around 66 meters.
The change shown in global dry land goes from about 132 million sq. kilometers to 128 million, and the analysis seems sound, making this article a sober and very useful counter to some of the more hysterical claims which has been circulated in relation to global warming.
Even if both the poles melted along with all the ice in Greenland, which is not likely to happen unless our orbit or sun changes dramatically, it would still take hundreds if not thousands of years for it to occur. That’s plenty of time to adapt. Sure we’d lose Florida, parts of Californiua’s Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, Seattle, Portland, and Washington along with New York and Boston, but many new areas would now be habitable due to the change.
Here’s what the Sacramento Valley would look like city-wise based on elevations:
| Some Valley Cities | and their elevations | compared to 66 meter sea level rise |
| Chico | 75 meters | waterfront property on the southwest side |
| Orland | 78 meters | waterfront property just south of town |
| Oroville | 58 meters | 8 meters underwater |
| Willows | 41 meters | 25 meters underwater |
| Red Bluff | 106 meters | 40 meters to go |
| Marysville | 34 meters | 32 meters underwater |
| Sacramento | 7 meters | 59 meters underwater |
Re:”Chico, 75 meters, waterfront property on the southwest side”
Surf’s up!
Hi Anthony,
It’s amazing that if the poles melted, we’d still have all that snow up in the Sierras!
*** Hi Gregg, yeah I figured somebody would point that out…the topography mapper puts that on there automatically based on elevation.
I didn’t make the map, but I agree it looks silly.
Anthony,
Looks like we would have time to build a dam with locks for ships at the Cartinez Straights to keep the Central Valley from flooding. Then we could pump all our water down south! No more worry about salt water in the delta! Ha!
Hi Bill,
While that makes sense, even in the midst of a global crisis, I’m sure there would be extreme environmental opposition to such a plan due to the salmon and sensitive delta smelt.
Of course that might be just the thing to convince them that global warming isn’t an issue, by saying the dam needs to be built to STOP the effects of GW on Central Valley agriculture.
Can’t wait to hear THAT argument. 🙂
Any evidence the central valley was flooded by seawater anytime in the past?
Just a weird thought.
A