rfmcdonald | [BRIEF NOTE] A tidelocked Earth (Reply)

A Tidelocked Earth
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

The results of the ESRI study "If the Earth Stood Still", a study by one Witold Fraczek linked to (by among others) Strange Maps, produce an interesting picture of Earth as a tidally locked world. If Earth suddenky stopped rotating--or, more precisely, if Earth's day became as long as its year, keeping the same side forever facing the Sun--the geography would change, radically and quickly.

[I]magine the earth stopping cold in its tracks. No more centrifugal force. No more bulging. Over time, the earth’s shape would approximate a perfect ball. But most of the immediate readjusting would be done by the most fluid element on our planet’s surface: the water, which by some measurements currently bulges as much as 8 km (5 mi.) at the equator. The consequences would be far more dramatic than any current climate change scenario. The oceans would not nibble at our shores. They would rise thousands of metres and swallow continents whole.

This would happen as the equatorial aquatic surplus would rush towards both poles, submerging much of the land mass towards either extremity, eventually creating an equatorial megacontinent that would ring the earth and thus separate both polar oceans.

What a strange new world this would be. As the earth would stop rotating (but presumably still circle the sun), one night-and-day cycle would last an entire year. The new continent ringing the globe (2) would include a large part of current Mid-Atlantic, Indian and Mid-Pacific seabeds, perhaps re-emerging legendary continents like Mu, Atlantis and other lands lost beneath the waves.

Most of North America would drown, a rump US still jutting out into the Northern Ocean. Of Europe, only Andalusia would remain (plus a few scattered Alpine, Pyrenean and Balkanic islets). Russia: gone. Central Asia: gone. North Africa would actually gain some land, but Afghanistan and Tibet would no longer be landlocked.

The southern hemisphere would fare a lot better: a lot less land to be lost there in the first place. Australia has to see Tasmania go, but gets a land bridge to Papua and the wider world – and that’s been a while, as attested by the development in isolation of its unique marsupial fauna. Speaking of which. Provided any animals (and humans) survive the Great Stoppage, it would be interesting to see what living on a single land mass does to the diversity of the natural world.

Because the Northern and Southern Ocean are now separate from each other, and since both basins have different capacities, there will be two sea levels, with the Southern Ocean’s zero elevation 1.4 km (0.9 mi.) lower than the Northern one.

The climate of this new Earth would be interesting. For a long time, it was thought that worlds locked on their primaries, with one side of eternal light and another of eternal night, would be uninhabitable, with the atmosphere freezing out on the night side. More recent studies suggest that the Earth could avoid such a fate, with air and water circulating constantly. The night side would still be inhospitable, though. Likely only the narrow twilight band--especially areas around the new West and East Poles--would be comfortable for our kind of life.