What-if - empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land for humans?

[a425couple]

I read this on Quora, and it seemed like an interesting
what-if.
Do readers remember Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise"
where a protagonist builds a bridge over Gibraltar?

answerHypothetical ScenariosTopic you might like
Niky Tamayo
8h ago

Would it be a good idea to empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land
for humans?
Only inflows from the Atlantic keep the Mediterranean from drying up. If
you could actually build the fifteen kilometer long dam needed to plug
up the flow at the Straits of Gibraltar, it would only take a thousand
years to dry up the entire basin, and while waiting for it to dry out,
you can use the dam to generate gigawatts of electricity.
(It seems to me, that's a NO, if you are generating energy by
allowing water flow, you are not dyring it up!)

(The Nazis wanted to do it. But then they were also slightly nuts)

Not that the extra land would do you a lot of good, since the previous
drying of the basin left salt beds up to a kilometer thick at some
points, making it unsuitable for mass agriculture without a lot of soil
engineering. Which, honestly, would be better applied to non-arable land
that is already dry… and safe from biblical flooding. Because there is a
very real danger of tectonic movement destroying the Dam (Isthmus?) of
Gibraltar. And if you lift nearly four million gigatons of water off
that basin, you are damn well assured that those plates are going to
shift around!

In the meantime, having all that water dry up and leave the basin
semi-permanently would lower precipitation (rain) around the basin,
further hurting agriculture. Not to mention the huge loss of fishing
stock. And the pesky issue of having global sea levels rise several
meters or so. (that water has to go somewhere….). Which means even less
liveable space for humanity, over all.
(italkali.com)

But hey, we’d be getting all that salt…
93K viewsView Upvoters
Lots of comments are available at the Quora.

[The Horny Goat]

On Sat, 3 Oct 2020 09:19:49 -0700, a425couple <***@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Good article though in my opinion you've left out one critical element
- draining a body of water like this (which wouldn't be 100% even if
feasible from an engineering point of view - there would bound to be
some lakes - would definitely affect climate patterns.

A bridge wouldn't do this as it wouldn't be intended to drain the Med
but a dam certainly would.

In Julian May's The Many Colored Land series (part of which involves
time travellers in 6 million BC when there was supposed to have been a
land bridge from Spain to Morocco similar to what you're describing,
one of the anti-hero / villain characters sends a bolt of psychic
energy against the "dam" causing small ruptures that eventually bring
the whole thing down thus creating the Med)

Post by a425couple
I read this on Quora, and it seemed like an interesting
what-if.
Do readers remember Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise"
where a protagonist builds a bridge over Gibraltar?
answerHypothetical ScenariosTopic you might like
Niky Tamayo
8h ago
Would it be a good idea to empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land
for humans?
Only inflows from the Atlantic keep the Mediterranean from drying up. If
you could actually build the fifteen kilometer long dam needed to plug
up the flow at the Straits of Gibraltar, it would only take a thousand
years to dry up the entire basin, and while waiting for it to dry out,
you can use the dam to generate gigawatts of electricity.
(It seems to me, that's a NO, if you are generating energy by
allowing water flow, you are not dyring it up!)
(The Nazis wanted to do it. But then they were also slightly nuts)
Not that the extra land would do you a lot of good, since the previous
drying of the basin left salt beds up to a kilometer thick at some
points, making it unsuitable for mass agriculture without a lot of soil
engineering. Which, honestly, would be better applied to non-arable land
that is already dry… and safe from biblical flooding. Because there is a
very real danger of tectonic movement destroying the Dam (Isthmus?) of
Gibraltar. And if you lift nearly four million gigatons of water off
that basin, you are damn well assured that those plates are going to
shift around!
In the meantime, having all that water dry up and leave the basin
semi-permanently would lower precipitation (rain) around the basin,
further hurting agriculture. Not to mention the huge loss of fishing
stock. And the pesky issue of having global sea levels rise several
meters or so. (that water has to go somewhere….). Which means even less
liveable space for humanity, over all.
(italkali.com)
But hey, we’d be getting all that salt…
93K viewsView Upvoters
Lots of comments are available at the Quora.

[pyotr filipivich]

Post by The Horny Goat
Good article though in my opinion you've left out one critical element
- draining a body of water like this (which wouldn't be 100% even if
feasible from an engineering point of view - there would bound to be
some lakes - would definitely affect climate patterns.
A bridge wouldn't do this as it wouldn't be intended to drain the Med
but a dam certainly would.

As a mega project to end all mega projects, putting a dike across
the strait would be up there. I contemplated the idea of a some kind
of framework to hold "windmills" in the currents to generate
electricity.
Closing them off to create a dam runs into the problems outlined
below: disruption of weather patterns in and out of the Med, drought
in much of the immediate area, especially once the water level drops,
disruption of commerce (the Suez Canal eventually becomes obsolete, if
it doesn't become a cataract of it's own to fill the Med from the
east.). The land which becomes available is ocean bottom , salt laden
and not viable for farming or pasture.
Even if you can end the inflow from the seas, and it dries up
(except for the salt lakes where the various rivers eventually run
dry) if memory serves some of those bottom lands are going to be
monstrously hostile, I seem to recall that temps would run in the 70's
- centigrade!

OTOH, imagine the archeology which would be possible, as
millennium of ship wrecks are exposed, not to mention any
towns/villages etc which were flooded.

Post by The Horny Goat
In Julian May's The Many Colored Land series (part of which involves
time travellers in 6 million BC when there was supposed to have been a
land bridge from Spain to Morocco similar to what you're describing,
one of the anti-hero / villain characters sends a bolt of psychic
energy against the "dam" causing small ruptures that eventually bring
the whole thing down thus creating the Med)

Post by a425couple
I read this on Quora, and it seemed like an interesting
what-if.
Do readers remember Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise"
where a protagonist builds a bridge over Gibraltar?
answerHypothetical ScenariosTopic you might like
Niky Tamayo
8h ago
Would it be a good idea to empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land
for humans?
Only inflows from the Atlantic keep the Mediterranean from drying up. If
you could actually build the fifteen kilometer long dam needed to plug
up the flow at the Straits of Gibraltar, it would only take a thousand
years to dry up the entire basin, and while waiting for it to dry out,
you can use the dam to generate gigawatts of electricity.
(It seems to me, that's a NO, if you are generating energy by
allowing water flow, you are not dyring it up!)
(The Nazis wanted to do it. But then they were also slightly nuts)
Not that the extra land would do you a lot of good, since the previous
drying of the basin left salt beds up to a kilometer thick at some
points, making it unsuitable for mass agriculture without a lot of soil
engineering. Which, honestly, would be better applied to non-arable land
that is already dry… and safe from biblical flooding. Because there is a
very real danger of tectonic movement destroying the Dam (Isthmus?) of
Gibraltar. And if you lift nearly four million gigatons of water off
that basin, you are damn well assured that those plates are going to
shift around!
In the meantime, having all that water dry up and leave the basin
semi-permanently would lower precipitation (rain) around the basin,
further hurting agriculture. Not to mention the huge loss of fishing
stock. And the pesky issue of having global sea levels rise several
meters or so. (that water has to go somewhere….). Which means even less
liveable space for humanity, over all.
(italkali.com)
But hey, we’d be getting all that salt…
93K viewsView Upvoters
Lots of comments are available at the Quora.

[SolomonW]

Post by a425couple
I read this on Quora, and it seemed like an interesting
what-if.
Do readers remember Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise"
where a protagonist builds a bridge over Gibraltar?
answerHypothetical ScenariosTopic you might like
Niky Tamayo
8h ago
Would it be a good idea to empty the Mediterranean Sea to have more land
for humans?
Only inflows from the Atlantic keep the Mediterranean from drying up. If
you could actually build the fifteen kilometer long dam needed to plug
up the flow at the Straits of Gibraltar, it would only take a thousand
years to dry up the entire basin, and while waiting for it to dry out,
you can use the dam to generate gigawatts of electricity.
(It seems to me, that's a NO, if you are generating energy by
allowing water flow, you are not dyring it up!)
(The Nazis wanted to do it. But then they were also slightly nuts)
Not that the extra land would do you a lot of good, since the previous
drying of the basin left salt beds up to a kilometer thick at some
points, making it unsuitable for mass agriculture without a lot of soil
engineering. Which, honestly, would be better applied to non-arable land
that is already dry… and safe from biblical flooding. Because there is a
very real danger of tectonic movement destroying the Dam (Isthmus?) of
Gibraltar. And if you lift nearly four million gigatons of water off
that basin, you are damn well assured that those plates are going to
shift around!
In the meantime, having all that water dry up and leave the basin
semi-permanently would lower precipitation (rain) around the basin,
further hurting agriculture. Not to mention the huge loss of fishing
stock. And the pesky issue of having global sea levels rise several
meters or so. (that water has to go somewhere….). Which means even less
liveable space for humanity, over all.
(italkali.com)
But hey, we’d be getting all that salt…
93K viewsView Upvoters
Lots of comments are available at the Quora.

We would have some more land, about the size of Argentina.

Much of the
economy of Southern Europe and North Africa would be significantly
affected.