Any port in a storm: could damming the North Sea mitigate the effects of climate change?

Mar 8

Mar 8 Any port in a storm: could damming the North Sea mitigate the effects of climate change?

The threat of sea level rise is not a new phenomenon. Climate change has been altering weather patterns, sea level, and temperature extremes for decades with increasing severity and concern. Myriad scientists, engineers, geologists and politicians are working tirelessly to create solutions to mitigate the effect that climate change will have on the human race. One of the newest, and more extreme, examples of the steps beginning developed and potentially implemented to address sea level rise is a system that would span the North Sea. The first dam would span about 475km and would connect the northern tip of the Scotland all the way to Norway, whilst the second would be a small dam barrier only spanning about 160km, connecting southern England to France.

Sjoerd Groeskamp, an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institutes for Sea Research, claims in an article with New Civil Engineer that the dams would protect more than 25 million Europeans against rising sea levels. The construction of this dam is largely feasible; however, whilst it would protect Europeans from sea level rise, it would drastically change the ecosystem in the North Sea. It is explained that the sea would no longer have tides, drastically altering the silt and nutrient balance and eventually leading it to turn into a giant freshwater lake. From a feasibility standpoint, the dams, while a huge undertaking, are physically and fiscally possible. The greatest depth in the project would be encountered in building the dam from Scotland to Norway. In building this dam, the engineers would need to create fixed platforms at a depth of 321m. Currently, engineers have the ability to create fixed platforms to the depths of 500m, negating this problem from a scientific perspective.

Fiscally, the cost of the dam would likely be shared among the ten European countries that will benefit from this project. It is suggested that its cost would have a lower estimate of around £240bn. This cost equals about 0.1% of the annual GDP over 20 years of all of the countries that would be protected by its construction. The scale of this project is far greater than any other attempted in a quest to alter the planet. Engineers are hoping that the scale of this project and the drastic changes that it will cause will serve as a warning to the public as to how severe the situation is in regard to the changes occurring to our climate. The idea of damming the North Sea is likely never to happen as there are many engineers who are sceptical of the benefits of doing so. It is more likely that barriers along the costs of the UK and Europe would be created in order to combat the rising sea levels.

However, the scientists involved with the project want this extreme project to serve as a warning to politicians and the public as to how dire the situation is getting. As Swedish professor Joakim Kjellsson explains, “conceptualizing the scale of the solutions required to protect ourselves against global-mean sea level rise aids in our ability to acknowledge and understand the threat that sea level rise poses.” He goes on to explain, “in the end, we came to realize it’s such an extreme solution that it would be much better and much less dramatic to reduce our CO2 emissions and curb global warming so that we don’t need these kinds of things.” The effects and dangers of sea level rise are already being felt in areas such as San Francisco, Manila, Indonesia, and coastlines around the world. It is stated that, “an estimated 600 million people live directly on the world’s coastlines, among the most hazardous places to be in the era of climate change.” In addition to drastic solutions such as damming the North Sea, governments are being forced to make major changes within their countries. For example, Indonesia’s government was recently forced to move its capital from Jakarta to Borneo due to forces of climate change. The capital was facing plummeting air quality as well as rising sea levels, making it no longer able to support the government or people living there.

Sea wall provisions have been attempted to counter the effects of sea level rise in Jakarta; however, it is sinking at a rate of 25cm per year and the sea wall is not strong enough to manage that change. The infrastructure in the city is failing to maintain a high standard of living; therefore making the move to
Borneo imperative. One of the most serious shortcomings in water quality, Jakarta currently relies on wells for their drinking water, but with the rise
in sea level these wells will no longer be able to sustain the needs of the city.

The North Sea damming project is a severe and drastic solution to a wicked problem. While the scientists have proposed this solution partly as a warning, the example of sea wall failure in Jakarta serves to suggest that these drastic measures may need to be taken.