Which cities are at risk of flooding due to global warming. Which cities will be flooded as a result of global warming (4 photos)

The flood area is shown in blue.

Changes on the map of Europe will be almost the most rapid and dramatic. After the failure of the tectonic plate, the entire north of the mainland will go under water. In place of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, only a handful of islands will remain. Most of the UK from Scotland to the English Channel will also sink, and the kingdom with the remnants of London and Birmingham will be located on small islands resembling modern Scottish ones. Almost all of Ireland will disappear.

Almost all of Central Europe from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea will go under water. From the whole of France there will be a small island with Paris in the center. Between him and Switzerland will lay a new waterway from Geneva to Zurich. A third of Spain, the western and southern parts of Portugal will disappear from the face of the earth.

Three-quarters of Italy will also go under water: Venice, Naples, Rome and Genoa will sink. New lands will appear from Sicily to Sardinia.

The Black Sea will flood Bulgaria and Romania. Part of western Turkey will disappear under water: a new coastline will stretch from Cyprus to Istanbul.

As for Russia, then Vladivostok, Magadan and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky will go to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The waves of the Baltic Sea will hide St. Petersburg, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Salekhard will be completely flooded. The West Siberian Plain will turn into a sea. The Azov and Black Seas will merge, a wide strait will connect them with the Caspian Sea, cutting off the Caucasus from Russia. The spilled waters of the Tsimlyansk reservoir will bury Rostov, Astrakhan, Volgograd regions and Stavropol.

Moreover, the lands remaining in Russia will be heavily swamped. For several years now, permafrost has been melting in the country. According to Professor Gennady Belchansky, head of the laboratory for space monitoring of Arctic ecosystems at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution named after A. A.N. Severtsov, the temperature of permafrost annually rises by half a degree, and in a few decades the permafrost will turn into a swamp, into which the buildings built there will collapse.

It will become impossible to use winter roads - which means that all the northern regions of Russia will be cut off from the mainland, because there are no other roads in these parts. In fact, the population of the northern cities will be left to the mercy of fate.

It will not be better for the indigenous peoples of the North. The sharply increased level of ultraviolet radiation will make it impossible for people to live near the Arctic Circle. Warming in the Arctic will negatively affect local flora and fauna. Scientists warn that polar bears, seals and other inhabitants of the icy expanses will not be able to adapt to new conditions and will die out. The impoverishment of natural resources will deprive the Chukchi, Koryaks and other indigenous peoples of the North of the opportunity to engage in traditional crafts. By the end of the 21st century, they will simply disappear from the face of the Earth.

Moreover, the polar ice caps act as a mirror - they reflect part of the sun's rays back into space. If they disappear, all the heat received from the Sun will remain on the Earth. The rate of global warming will increase exponentially. According to specialists from the Institute of Computational Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, by 2100 the average annual temperature will increase by 3 degrees. The strongest (by 4-6 degrees) the air will warm up in the temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, while over the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere - by only 2-3 degrees.

In the report “The Impact of Global Warming on the Climate in Europe”, the European Environment Agency warns that by 2050 the average annual temperature in the EU will rise by 2-6 degrees. The largest temperature jump is expected in Spain, Italy and Greece. In Northern Europe, warming will be less noticeable. In practice, this means that winters will become warm and snowless, while summers will be unusually hot and dry. Only sometimes the heat of 40 degrees or more will be interrupted by heavy rains and thunderstorms, contributing to floods.

Global warming will not bypass Russia. Specialists from Moscow State University, the Center for Problems of Ecology and Forest Productivity of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of Kassel (Germany) believe that by the end of the 21st century, the average annual temperature in Russia will increase by 4-6 degrees. Here, warming will affect mainly the northern regions. In the south, the temperature will rise by only 1 degree, but this will be enough for a drought to come here.

Previously, the borders of Europe were very different. Where the sea splashes today, there were pastures and forests, where people lived and birds hibernated. Global climatic processes threaten the population of Europe even today, causing floods and other natural disasters.

Doggerland: Europe Under the Ocean

Today Europe is sounding the alarm: global warming, melting glaciers, rising sea levels are problems that will soon affect everyone. The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy will disappear into sea waters, and warm air will increase turbulence over the Atlantic. However, serious climate change has drastically affected people's lives before. Remembering the hardships of the past, you need to learn from history.

The first alarm signal from nature sounded in Europe as early as 6500 BC - it was then that the global melting of glaciers began. Eight thousand years ago, the British Isles were connected to the mainland by a land later called Doggerland by archaeologists - the land of fishermen.

Exploration of Doggerland began with prehistoric harpoons and ammunition found in 1931 by a fishing trawler. As it turned out, in ancient times, the sea level near Europe was 120 meters lower than today, thus, in the Mesolithic era, people lived in the territories where the modern English Channel and the North Sea are located.

Doggerland connected the territories of modern Great Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands. This area was a land covered with tundra, with lagoons and swamps, rich in birds and fish.

According to a popular theory, due to the melting of the glaciers, Doggerland was inundated by the North Sea, and Britain became cut off from the European mainland about 8,500 years ago. However, on the site of the former land of the fishermen, a small island remained, gradually sinking into the water. Another hypothesis suggests that Doggerland was flooded by a large-scale tsunami that arose due to landslides of underwater soil in Norway, the so-called Sturegga. One way or another, Britain became separated from the continent, both geographically and culturally, which led to the emergence of specific traditions and a different path of development.

Black Sea Flood

A thousand years later, another large-scale flooding of Europe occurred - this time in the east. Around 5600 B.C. The Black Sea was in much more modest boundaries than it is now. According to the theory of American geologists Rayman and Pitman, the Black Sea was previously a freshwater lake, but then, due to earthquakes, the previously closed Mediterranean Sea connected with the Black Sea, which began to quickly fill with salty sea water.

The level of the Black Sea rose by 140 meters - at the same time, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov arose, and instead of the modern Bosphorus Strait, an endless giant waterfall was flowing, 200 times larger than Niagara in terms of water flow.

Of course, the increase in the volume of the Black Sea by 1.5 times led to the immediate flooding of the huge coastal zone. It is possible that it was this event that served as the basis for the myth of the Flood that exists in many cultures. Some historians also connect Plato's story of Atlantis with the flooding of the Black Sea. In any case, the Black Sea flood caused a full-scale migration of peoples.

Despite criticism of this theory, the famous marinologist Ballard in 2000 confirmed the guesses of geologists by exploring the ancient coastlines of the Black Sea. With the help of radiocarbon analysis of molluscs and the study of changes in sedimentary rocks and aquatic plant species, scientists came to the conclusion that about 7500 thousand years ago the Black Sea was absolutely fresh.

Climate Change in Medieval Europe

After the warming of the Roman era, a long winter comes to Europe, which scientists call the climatic pessimum of the era of the Great Migration. Beginning around the 3rd-4th century AD, the pessimum continued until the middle of the 8th. Winters became colder, the air humidity increased, and the growth of glaciers accelerated so much that even some previously perfect Roman roads were partially blocked. The general average annual temperature has decreased by 1.5 degrees relative to the present day. The gradual cooling of the pessimum led in 535-536 to the worldwide cold anomaly.

Cooling in 535-536. was the most significant in the last two thousand years. Due to the eruption of tropical volcanoes, the transparency of the atmosphere dropped sharply, which led to a sharp cooling.

Here is what a medieval historian wrote: “And this year the greatest miracle happened: the whole year the sun emitted light like the moon, without rays, as if it was losing its strength, ceasing to shine, as before, purely and brightly. From the time this began, neither war, nor pestilence, nor any other calamity that brings death has ceased among people.

At the same time, a plague epidemic began, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and the cold snap caused a chain reaction - the harvest decreased, famine began, the population of hungry regions began to migrate, which led to military clashes.

After the events of 536, the weather in Europe did not improve overnight. In Italy, there were frequent floods, on the coast of the North Sea and in England, the sea flooded part of the land, in France, severe downpours and floods began. Hunger, a humid climate and unusually cold winters lead to the fact that leprosy spreads in Central Europe in the 8th-9th centuries. Due to a sharp change in climate and wars, the population of Europe is halved - from 20 to 10 million people. Famine and disease forced the inhabitants of cities and villages in the northern Alps to leave their homes, and new settlements, according to archaeological data, lost touch with the previous culture.

Historians believe that it is to the pessimum that we owe such a historical phenomenon as the Great Migration of Nations. The rapid population growth in the era of Roman warming was replaced by a sharp cooling and forced peoples to look for new lands for settlement.

Little Ice Age

After the era of the migration of peoples in Europe in the 10th century, warming again sets in, lasting about three hundred years. However, at the beginning of the XIV century, the course of the warm Gulf Stream slows down, which leads to a real environmental disaster - unusually heavy rains begin, winters become severe, which leads to the freezing of gardens and the death of crops.

Fruit trees have completely died out in England, Scotland, northern France and Germany. In Germany and Scotland, all vineyards were frozen, which led to the cessation of the tradition of winemaking. Snow began to fall in Italy, and severe frosts led to mass starvation. Medieval legends tell that in England of the XIV century, due to rains and storms, two mythical islands are completely hidden under water. In Russia, the cooling process was reflected in atypically rainy years.

Scientists tend to call this period, which lasted from the 14th to the 19th centuries, the Little Ice Age, since the average annual temperature at that time was the lowest in two thousand years. Despite the fact that temperatures began to rise at the end of the 14th century, the Ice Age did not end there. Snowfalls and frosts continued, although the famine associated with a small harvest had already ended.

Snow-covered Central Europe became commonplace, and glaciers began to advance in Greenland, permafrost settled in the region. Some researchers attribute the slight warming characteristic of the 15th-16th centuries to the fact that the maximum solar activity of that time compensated for the slowdown of the Gulf Stream, raising the average annual temperature.

However, the coldest time of the Little Ice Age was the third stage of cooling - solar activity decreased sharply, which led to the disappearance of the Vikings from Greenland, covering even the southern seas with ice. A sharp change in temperature allowed people to freely ride on the Thames, the Danube and the Moscow River. In Paris, Berlin and London, blizzards and snowfalls, blizzards and drifts have become commonplace. This period was the coldest in the recent history of Europe, but in the 19th century temperatures gradually began to rise, and today the world is in a phase of natural warming, in a state of exit from the Little Ice Age, as some researchers think.

Therefore, it is not surprising that in many large cities in Europe, for example, in Prague, unexpected floods occur, and the average annual temperature in the world is steadily rising. According to the theory of climatologists, a climatic optimum should soon follow, which will return the world to the climatic state of the 10th century.

Neither Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement nor an abnormally cold spring across much of Eurasia has undermined the resolve of Western enthusiasts to fight climate change. The paradigm of the "man-made" nature of global warming is still considered indisputable by them.

Be that as it may, but the climate is really changing, average temperatures are rising. So let's try to figure out where it will be better to live when it finally gets warmer?

Just not in Europe!

Almost all futuristic forecasts for Western Europe are unfavorable. So, according to last year's report by the Norwegian Center for Climate Research CICERO, in a few years, from about 2020, the climate in Europe will go haywire: the temperature will begin to jump, as if in a fever, throwing either hot or cold; periods of drought will alternate with floods; destructive hurricanes will become commonplace.

All this will go on increasing, so that somewhere by the 80s of the current century, life in Europe will become completely unbearable. And its southern part - Spain, Italy, Greece - will also be unsuitable for agriculture due to aridity. That is, it will practically turn into a desert.

Mediterranean is not a resort

It will not be better on the other side of the Mediterranean. According to the results of computer simulations, in the middle of the century, the entire North Africa and the Middle East will become not just uncomfortable, but uninhabitable due to the heat. The average daytime temperature in summer there will exceed 45 degrees, and at night - 30 degrees Celsius. Pilgrimage to the Muslim shrines of Saudi Arabia (hajj) will be a real feat.

Maybe it's better to freeze?

But there is another forecast, no less comforting for Europe. The active melting of the Arctic ice leads to the desalination of the North Atlantic. Its waters are becoming less dense, and, according to the calculations of oceanologists, this can lead to a collision of two undercurrents: the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador Stream (now they “flow” at different depths). In this case, Europe will lose its "water heating", because it is the Gulf Stream, heating its western coast, that softens the climate - makes it warm and moderately humid. If the cold current cuts the Gulf Stream halfway, in principle, no catastrophe will happen, just the winters in Western Europe will become as frosty as in Russia, the dank off-season will lengthen. But this will have a detrimental effect on agriculture (French and German wines will become exotic), it will be necessary to rebuild the entire infrastructure, insulate houses, increase the fleet of snowplows, and import more gas. In general, Europe will noticeably draw closer to Russia.

The flood is not far off

However, let us return to the main scenario - warming. It will be most pronounced at the poles. For example, the area of ​​Arctic ice has already shrunk to a historical minimum. Greenland is slowly thawing - maybe it will even return to the state in which the Vikings called it "Green Land". As ice caps melt, sea levels rise. This process is going on more and more intensively: just a few years ago, the ocean rose by less than 2 millimeters per year, and now it is already more than 3 millimeters. According to the calculations of scientists, in the next decade the Arctic will be completely cleared of ice in the summer. The Greenland glacier will also melt, which is why water all over the Earth will arrive immediately by half a meter.

In total, according to UN experts, this century the ocean will rise by almost 6.5 meters. Is it a lot or a little? How to look. If you live somewhere in the Alps or the Himalayas, you will hardly notice such a rise in sea levels. But, for example, for the inhabitants of the Netherlands it will be a real disaster, because almost their entire country will go under water and no dams will help! From Great Britain there will be practically only Scotland, from France - miserable islets; the Scandinavian countries will turn into archipelagos. Australia will have an inland sea; almost all of North Africa, including Egypt, as well as parts of Turkey and Iran, will go under water. Water will come to the coasts of China, Mexico, the USA and many other countries. And Europe, under this scenario, will not be able to get closer to Russia: they will be separated by a huge sea into which the current White, Baltic and Black Seas will merge. The watershed will pass through the territories of the Baltic republics, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine - these states will greatly decrease in size.

Pretty soon the ocean will begin to absorb the famous cities: Venice (1 meter above sea level), Odessa and Kaliningrad (2 meters), New York and Pisa (3 meters), Vladivostok and Bangkok (4 meters), St. Petersburg, Tokyo and Shanghai (6 meters). Entire states will also go under water: for example, the Maldives will completely disappear if the ocean level rises by only 2.5 meters (those who were going to relax in this paradise must hurry!).

New migration of peoples

So, the heat can make many densely populated regions uninhabitable: India, Iran, the countries of the Arab world, Africa and Central America are at risk. And as a result of the melting of ice, the ocean will flood vast lands with cities and farmlands. Where to go to the inhabitants of these places?

Clearly, the era of climate refugees is approaching. People will embark on distant and dangerous journeys not in search of a better life, but simply to survive. Migration flows will become so massive that, against their background, all the great migrations of the peoples of previous eras will no longer seem great. The climate refugee bill will run into the billions. And according to the forecasts of the World Health Organization, in this century the number of hungry people in the world will reach 2 billion!

And we don't care?

Climate change will cause much less harm to Russia than to its neighbors, and in some ways will even benefit. Yes, it can become too hot and dry in the southern regions: in the Don, Kuban, the Southern Urals and the Lower Volga region, a lack of water will reduce the productivity of farmland by a quarter. But how the North will warm up! According to the calculations of climatologists from the USA and Canada, in the near future, one of the most favorable places for life on our planet will become ... taiga.

With an increase in the average annual temperature there, the growing season will be extended, biodiversity will increase, humidity will increase and, consequently, winters will be milder. In general, in the Siberian and Canadian taiga it will become almost the same as it is now in Europe. And this despite the fact that untouched nature, gorgeous forests have been preserved here! The problem of transport accessibility of these territories will be solved by itself, because the Arctic Ocean will cease to be. Even now, the period of navigation along the Northern Sea Route is lengthening year by year.

There are still risks

Nevertheless, climate change poses serious risks for our country. It is possible that because of the advancing ocean, in the coming decades, such large cities as St. Petersburg and Vladivostok will have to be relocated. The idea may also arise of moving architectural monuments from these cities. All in all, there is a lot of work to be done. The whole of Western Siberia, and this is one of our main oil-bearing provinces, can be flooded - the entire infrastructure will be under water.

Warming in the northern latitudes is also not an unequivocal blessing. The permafrost will begin (and has already begun) to melt. The foundations of buildings, roads, oil pipelines will “float”. According to scientists from the Ural Federal University, the process is on the rise: the permafrost has already warmed from minus 10 to minus 5 degrees, and when it steps over zero, a real disaster will happen. And it's not just about destruction: as the soil thaws, methane hitherto ice-bound will begin to be abundantly released from them. And this means that, firstly, permafrost thawing will accelerate (microorganisms will begin to multiply in the soil, warming it) and, secondly, due to an increase in the concentration of organic gases in the atmosphere, the “greenhouse effect” will further increase on the planet. That is, warming will continue. And all sorts of bad microorganisms like anthrax spores begin to thaw ...

Well, where we do not?

In a word, it is almost impossible to find a place on Earth where, as a result of climate change, it will become unambiguously good to live. And if one is discovered, then a flow of climate migrants will immediately pour in there, which will negate all the advantages.

It is also pointless to seek shelter in advance because climate forecasts are, in fact, written with a pitchfork on the water. Indeed, from a mathematical point of view, the climate is a typical chaotic system, where any long-term predictions are unreliable due to many factors that can affect the situation in a completely unexpected way. Therefore, it remains to hope that the current warming on our planet is far from the first and that it must be followed by a relative cooling. After all, this has happened more than once in geological history - in full accordance with the long phases of solar activity. And it may turn out that the current spring-summer dankness is the first sign of global cooling. Then - in the trash all forecasts! As for carbon dioxide, which is now considered the main cause of the growing greenhouse effect, its concentration in the Earth's atmosphere is constantly changing, and not a person is responsible for this, but the World Ocean - about 90% of CO2 emissions are on its "conscience".

Thus, everything can turn out “exactly the opposite” and instead of global warming, a new ice age will come. The whole question is when? Maybe in a few decades, or maybe centuries. The main thing here is not to panic in advance. But if someone in your neighborhood begins to enthusiastically build an ark, you should take it seriously and reserve a place for yourself. Just in case.

Usually they discuss what will happen with global warming. The ice will melt and the sea level will rise. Everyone has seen these cards - for Russia it will not be too critical. Some coastal areas will go under water, but nothing critical, such as for countries such as the Netherlands, England, etc.

But for example, experts believe that global cooling will bring catastrophic consequences for Russia. Look here...

Global cooling will create ice dams at the mouth of the Siberian rivers, and they will block river flows. Water from the Ob and Yenisei, not finding an outlet to the ocean, will flood the lowlands. Excess water will fill the Turan lowland, the Aral Sea will merge with the Caspian Sea, the level of which will rise by more than 80 meters. Further, water along the Kumo-Manych depression will spill into the Don. The Krasnodar Territory, part of Turkey and Bulgaria will go under water. To avoid the onset of the ice age, humanity needs to support the work of the main earth battery - the Gulf Stream.

This can be done in two ways: the first is to launch the eastern warm Kuroshio Current into the Arctic, the second is to pump the Gulf Stream to the north.

The climate is warming, and quite significant. Over the past century, the average temperature on the globe has risen by 0.7-0.8 degrees. Nothing like this has happened on the planet for more than two millennia. Cycles of warming and cooling have always existed on Earth. Scientists are still arguing about what causes them. Some believe that this is caused by the changing activity of the Sun, others say that it gets colder on the planet during periods when the solar system passes through dust and gas accumulations, others blame the earth's axis, which constantly fluctuates and changes its angle of inclination.

Back in 1939, the Yugoslav scientist Milankovitch calculated that the Earth's climate changes in three cycles - 23,000, 41,000 and 100,000 years (they were called the Milankovitch cycles). In accordance with them, humanity is now experiencing the very heat (Great Summer), which should be replaced by cold (Great Winter). And the change will take place not millennia, and not centuries (as it is now with global warming) - it will take place in 10-15, maximum 50 years.

About what can cause a new ice age and how, in particular, Russia will change then, is described in the book of science popularizer Valery Chumakov "End of the World: Forecasts and Scenarios" (ENAS publishing house, 2010). For informational purposes, we present an excerpt from a book on global cooling.

How the Gulfstream works

The Gulf Stream is the most powerful warm current on the planet. It originates in the Gulf of Mexico, where the winds drive huge masses of water through the Yucatan Strait, and goes to the north of the Atlantic, up to the islands of Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard, overcoming about 10 thousand kilometers along the way; its width is 110-120 kilometers. The current speed reaches 10 km / h.

Salty ocean water heated near the equator, moving north, gradually releases its heat into the atmosphere. Ocean winds carry warm air to the mainland and warm coastal and island states. Having reached the northernmost point, the Gulf Stream cools down completely. Its salty water is heavier than the fresher water of the Arctic Ocean. It sinks to the depths and, having turned into a deep-sea cold Labrador current, begins its return journey south to the equator. This "lowering" ensures the continuous operation of the giant thermal conveyor, which is the Gulf Stream. The "elevator" will stop, moving the flow from one current to another - the entire conveyor will also stop. The shutdown will lead to a sharp drop in average temperatures in most of the leading countries of the world - in the USA, England, France, Germany, etc. The worst thing in this case will be Norway, here the temperature will immediately drop by 15-20 degrees.

For this stop, it is necessary to increase the temperature in the region of the North Pole by only 1.2 degrees. Then the melting Arctic glaciers will "merge" into the Arctic Ocean with a huge mass of fresh cold water. Mixed with the salty water of the Gulf Stream, fresh water will greatly lighten it and prevent it from falling to the bottom. At the end of its journey, the current will simply disperse over the surface and, having no reverse course, will stop.

But this will not happen overnight. The process of stopping will take from 2 to 7 years, during which the Gulf Stream will increasingly shift to the south, until it closes on the cold Canary Current, which is now washing the shores of West Africa. At the same time, the temperature will drop in the countries of Northern and Western Europe and on the east coast of the United States.

Stopping the Gulf Stream and a sharp cooling in Europe and South America will become a kind of "trigger" that will launch a chain of further changes. The drop in temperature will cause the snow cover in these regions to last much longer. And since the albedo (reflectivity) of white snow is about nine times higher than the albedo of black earth, then the sunlight will be reflected from it almost completely, without turning into heat. A kind of chain reaction will result, which will lead to the fact that snow will cover the ground almost all year round.

Then the process of glacial advance will begin. More precisely, leaks, because glaciers are flowing - not so slowly, their speed can reach up to 7 meters per day. The cooling of the World Ocean will lead to the fact that it will begin to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It will be similar to the situation with champagne: the colder it is, the less gas it releases. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will greatly decrease, and since it is the main greenhouse gas, the greenhouse effect will weaken, respectively, and the temperature on the planet will continue to fall.

All this applies mainly to coastal areas. Those territories where 40% of the world's population now lives and which produce more than half of the world's product. Russia will have different problems, but not less. A group of Russian scientists led by Valery Karnaukhov, deputy director of the Institute of Cell Biophysics (Pushchino), on the instructions of the Russian Emergencies Ministry in April 2000 calculated the scenario according to which events would develop in our country.

Russian sea

So, the Gulf Stream stopped, warm water does not enter the Arctic, and soon a huge ice dam forms along the northern coast of Russia. Large Siberian rivers rest against this dam: Yenisei, Lena, Ob, etc. After the formation of the Siberian ice dam, ice jams on the rivers will become more and more powerful, and spills - more and more extensive.

In the early 1950s, the USSR developed a project to create the West Siberian Sea. Huge dams were supposed to block the currents of the Ob and Yenisei at the exit to the ocean. As a result, the entire West Siberian lowland would have been flooded, the country would have received the world's largest Severo-Obskaya hydroelectric power station, and the evaporation of the new sea, comparable in area to the Mediterranean, should have greatly softened the sharply continental Siberian climate. However, the largest oil reserves were found in the territory that was subject to flooding, and the “seabuilding” had to be postponed.

(What happened to the temperature in the northern hemisphere over the past million years)

Now, what man could not do, nature will do. Only the ice dam will be larger than the one they were going to build. Consequently, the spill will be larger. Ice dams will finally block river flows over time. Water from the Ob and Yenisei, not finding an outlet to the ocean, will flood the lowlands. The water level in the new sea will rise until it reaches 130 meters. After that, it will begin to flow to Europe through the Turgai hollow, located in the eastern part of the Ural Mountains. The resulting stream will wash away a 40-meter layer of soil and expose the granite bottom of the hollow. As the channel expands and deepens, the level of the young sea will fall and fall to 90 meters.

Excess water will fill the Turan lowland, the Aral Sea will merge with the Caspian Sea, the level of which will rise by more than 80 meters. Further, water along the Kumo-Manych depression will spill into the Don. And these will be the great Siberian rivers Ob and Yenisei completely turned towards Europe. All the Central Asian republics will be under water, and the Don itself will turn into the most full-flowing river in the world, next to which the Amazon and Amur will look like streams. The width of the stream will reach 50 kilometers or more. The level of the Sea of ​​Azov will rise so much that it will flood the Crimean peninsula and merge with the Black Sea. Further, the water will go through the Bosphorus to the Mediterranean Sea, but the Bosphorus will not cope with such volumes. The Krasnodar Territory, part of Turkey and almost all of Bulgaria will go under water.

Scientists allocate 50-70 years for everything. By this time, the northern part of Russia, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, almost all of Great Britain, most of Germany and France will already be covered in ice.

"Atlantis" on the path of a warm current

There are other scenarios, for example, proposed by Russian scientist Nikolai Zharvin. He and his supporters believe that the change of epochs of glaciation and warming does not occur at all because the amount of heat received by it increases or decreases. According to their theory, these giant cataclysms are caused by vertical oscillations of the two largest lithospheric plates - the North American and the North Eurasian.

The Gulf Stream 8 thousand years ago did not reach the north of Europe and America. His path was blocked by a rather extensive island, the size of Greenland. Resting against it, the current turned away and warmed not Scandinavia, as it is now, but the already warm Gibraltar. The lack of heat led to the fact that the surface of the continents already beyond the 50th parallel (the southern border of Great Britain) was covered with a layer of ice. It is believed that the ice reserve of the same Greenland was then three times more than it is today. Due to the fact that the mass of water accumulated in the northern glaciers, the level of the World Ocean was lower than today by 150 meters. It was during this period that people settled a lot of islands now cut off from each other, and maybe even moved from Europe to America on dry land.

The pressure of the Greenland ice on the North American plate led to the fact that, unable to withstand the load, it broke and dropped sharply into the interior of the planet, into the magma layer. This was accompanied by a monstrous earthquake and a series of powerful volcanic eruptions. When everything calmed down, it turned out that the island blocking the way to the Gulf Stream was gone. The fault went right through him, and he just plunged into the ocean depths to more than a kilometer deep. Some time later, people, remembering this fertile region washed by the tropical current, will call it Atlantis and will remember it as a lost earthly paradise.

The Gulf Stream, now not encountering any obstacles on its way, broke through to the north and began its stormy climate-forming activity there. Gradually, the Arctic warmed up and freed itself from the accumulated excess ice. Now Greenland's reserves are only a third of what it used to be - 2.7 million cubic meters. km. And this would be normal if stocks were not depleted at an ever-increasing rate. Glaciers in North America lose up to 10 meters in height per year. When their mass drops to a critical one, a new rupture will occur and the North American plate will rush upwards for about a kilometer, again revealing Atlantis to the world. Supporters of Jarvin called the future cataclysm "Icelandic steam explosion".

Masses of water vapor, escaping through the formed cracks into the atmosphere, will cover the planet with a dense layer of rain clouds, from which truly biblical rain will pour down on the Earth. Trillions of tons of water will fall on the continents, which will lead to the flooding of all lowland and flat areas. The earthquake will give rise to a series of powerful tsunamis that will simply wash away all coastal European and American cities. And the Gulf Stream, having again met Atlantis that has emerged from the abyss, will go south, giving rise to a new ice age.

Salvation - dam across the Bering Strait

What is the recipe for salvation - how to help the Gulf Stream? In order to avoid the onset of the ice age or to delay its arrival, humanity needs to support the work of the main earth battery - the Gulf Stream. This can be done in two ways: the first is to launch the eastern warm salty Kuroshio Current into the Arctic, the second is to pump the Gulf Stream to the north.

In 1891, the great explorer of the Arctic, Fridtjof Nansen, proposed to the Russian government that the Bering Strait be widened and deepened in order to facilitate access to the Arctic Ocean, which was rather powerful but limited in space, Kuroshio. As a result, the climate of the Arctic would become much milder, and the navigation of the Northern Sea Route would increase significantly.

In the early 1960s, projects for warming the Arctic began to take on real features. In 1962, the Soviet engineer P. Borisov proposed to build a giant dam across the Bering Strait. The pumping units located in it were supposed to pump 140 thousand cubic kilometers of water from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean per year. The resulting shortage in the Arctic Ocean would be replenished by “drawing in” the warm currents of the Atlantic. So the Gulf Stream could reach the mouth of the Yenisei, where the Greenland glaciers would not spoil it.

If the plan were implemented, the Soviet Union would reduce the cost of mining in Siberia by an order of magnitude, make the richest oil and gas-bearing regions of the country more livable, and receive an almost year-round shipping route from Europe to Asia - not bypassing, through the Suez Canal , and almost directly through the Arctic Ocean.

The idea of ​​the Bering waterworks was so popular in the 1960s that drawings of the dam were even published in the Children's Encyclopedia, and its sketches were on matchboxes.

However, the military intervened. The main bases of the Soviet nuclear submarine fleet were located in the North, and it was not at all necessary that trade caravans roamed in these strategically important areas all year round. The project of "warming" Russia was closed.

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Within two years of the pole shift, due to the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, ocean levels will rise by 200 meters. The map covers not only Western Europe, but also the European part of Russia. The flood area is shown in blue. Changes on the map of Europe will be almost the most rapid and dramatic. After the failure of the tectonic plate, the entire north of the mainland will go under water. In place of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, only a handful of islands will remain. Most of the UK from Scotland to the English Channel will also sink, and the kingdom with the remnants of London and Birmingham will be located on small islands resembling modern Scottish ones. Almost all of Ireland will disappear. Almost all of Central Europe from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea will go under water. From the whole of France there will be a small island with Paris in the center. Between him and Switzerland will lay a new waterway from Geneva to Zurich. A third of Spain, the western and southern parts of Portugal will disappear from the face of the earth. Three-quarters of Italy will also go under water: Venice, Naples, Rome and Genoa will sink, but the Vatican will be saved - the city will be transferred to elevated land areas. New lands will appear from Sicily to Sardinia. The Black Sea will flood Bulgaria and Romania. Part of western Turkey will disappear under water: a new coastline will stretch from Cyprus to Istanbul. The former Soviet Union will be separated from Europe by a huge sea - the result of the confluence of the Caspian, Black, Kara and Baltic seas. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (except for the southernmost part) will drown in it. Divided almost in the middle by an island-ridge of the Ural Mountains, it will cover the entire European territory of Russia and Siberia up to the Yenisei. Under the water column will be: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan (except for one third in the southeast); Uzbekistan (except the southeastern quarter); western Kazakhstan (only islands of the northern and part of the eastern territories will remain). From Belarus there will be a small eastern section, and from Ukraine - part of the northeastern tip. Lake Balkhash will increase to the size of the state of Colorado, and Lake Baikal to the size of Great Britain. The east of Russia will remain almost untouched, but a huge body of water will appear here - the Laptev Sea that has spilled deep into the continent; Vast areas of the northern coast will also go under water.

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