Global Warming could lead to massive water bulgeWashington DC under the SeaBy Sylvie BarakFriday, 6 February 2009, 08:28HUMANITY'S EXCESS could lead to a big fat bulge, scientists have warned. An Oceanic bulge that is, with global warming melting Arctic and Antarctic ice and creating the risk of massive water surges, which threaten to submerge parts of Washington DC and California.This latest hysterical claim, being shrieked out in high-pitched falsetto by scientists and enviro mentalists alike, is based on studies by University of Toronto boffins who claim that, rather than just uniformly spreading out, water from melted ice caps will gather around North America and the Indian Ocean in an unsightly blob.Scientists have already floated the idea the world's sea levels are set to rise by about five metres if we don't start switching off lights in the bathroom, or spending inordinate amounts of money we don't have on hybrid cars, but the water bulge factor is new.According to the Canadian researchers, it all comes down to gravitational attraction, with Antarctic ice sheets pulling surrounding water towards the South Pole. When the ice sheet melts, however, the watery bulge will flood into surrounding oceans, letting sea level near Antarctica drop whilst the sea level everywhere else rises. Apparently.That's not all, though. Supposedly when the ice melts, the release of pressure could also cause the Antarctic continent to rise up by 100 metres. But as the weight of the ice pressing down on the continental shelf is released, the rock will purportedly spring back, displacing masses of seawater in the process. [Just tried to demo this in the bathtub at home, EPIC FAIL]The researchers believe the redistributing of this water mass could even change the axis of the Earth's spin, shifting the South Pole by 500 metres west of Antarctica and the North Pole in the opposite direction.Because the Earth's spin creates bulges of oceanic water in the regions between the equator and the poles, hey presto, new and ever more terrifying bulges will appear and the North American continent had better brace itself for The Day After Tomorrow. Or WaterWorld, with Al Gore playing Kevin Costner.The Toronto uni scaremongers warn Washington DC could face a 6.3-metre rise in sea level whilst California too would be in the danger zone. But there are also plenty of other boffins out there who reckon this is all frenzied poppycock, and arctic sea ice is actually increasing.Here in Britain, where the entire nation already ceases to function after just a few centimeters of snow, it probably won't make the slightest bit of difference to the way our infrastructure already doesn't function. But we'll be sad not to be able to use the icy cold bulge water to build snowmen in the garden. µL'Inq
