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From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: American War a dystopic novel
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2024 17:48:13 -0400
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Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On 31/08/2024 00:03, William Hyde wrote:
>> Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> On 8/29/2024 11:52 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
>>>> I read this in May of 2017
>>>>   "American War"- set in a future of Global Warming and post American
>>>> Civil War II.  No Florida and the Southern Coast is depleted.
>>>>      The Big Bay* is in Central California.  I.e. the Central Valley
>>>> and San Joaquin Valley are flooded.  Only the high points of
>>>> the San Francisco Bay Area remain above water.
>>>>      A Free Southern State exists with a quarantine zone in South
>>>> Carolina.  Florida is gone. New Orleans is gone.
>>>>      A Mexican Protectorate extends past San Francisco and takes
>>>> up the Southern-Most tier of Western states.
>>>>
>>>>      The narrator of the tale of the female protagonist lives in
>>>> New Anchorage, Alaska where they might see frost on the
>>>> windows in  January, but it never snows.  Alaska is a Neutral
>>>> State
>>>> `    The author is one Omar El Akkad.
>>>>
>>>>      The ACW II takes place from 2074-2095 caused by the
>>>> Southern states unwillingness to abide by the ban on
>>>> Fossil Fuels finally enacted.  Florida is gone.
>>>>      A girl's father is murdered and a thirst for revenge
>>>> grows within her as the War goes on.  Horrendous acts
>>>> are done on each side and the protagonist does the
>>>> final horrendous act of the War, which kills the last
>>>> of her relatives but not intentionally.
>>>>
>>>>      It could be sub-titled Fall of the American Empire!
>>>>
>>>>      bliss
>>>
>>> Tallahassee, Florida (the panhandle) is 203 feet above sea level.  Is 
>>> that underwater ?
>>
>> Maximum elevation 266, minimum 7, average 118.
>>
>> I believe we discussed  this some time ago.  Even if all the ice 
>> sheets go, together with the geoid's adjustment to the lack of  the 
>> Antarctic ice sheet's gravity, a fragment of Florida would still 
>> exist.  Looks like Tallahassee would survive as a couple of small 
>> islands. Which seems to be what the novel says.
>>
>> Such melting will not occur by 2075, but we allow far greater 
>> distortions of science for a good story.
>>
>> Akkad is not principally an SF writer.
> 
> Warm water rises.
> 
Water over 4C does expand with heat, but very little.  Sea level rise in 
the Cretaceous due to warmth was about 20m (I once calculated that and 
was considering putting it in a paper when I discovered that it had been 
done twenty years earlier ... at least we got the same answer).

Sea level rise due to thermal expansion is happening, but I would be 
surprised if the warming by 2075 added as much as a meter in this way, 
even in the extreme scenario of the book.  And this is in the noise 
given other uncertainties.

In the case of a return-to-Cretaceous scenario twenty meters could be 
added, but there would be a lag of some thousands of years before the 
warmer temperatures affected the deep ocean.

Plausibility is nice, but not required for a good story.  "The Great 
Nebraska Sea" is totally implausible but enjoyable.

William Hyde