Riding The Waves

Riding The Waves by Ashton Hummler

Alright, I can’t be the only one that feels it. The way the weather is changing. The way the winters seem to get warmer and warmer, and coming to a close much sooner. As a New Yorker, I feel like as a kid I remember snow being a regular occurrence during the winter. Now it seems like snow is such a rare occurrence, and it consistently snows less and less every winter. The summers feel warmer and warmer, to the point where I never remembered the heat bothering me when I was younger. Now I feel like August is more sweltering than ever. Climate change is a force that is coming, and it's coming hard and fast.

It’s an even greater force for our oceans. Climate change has a monumental impact on our planet's oceans, and the effects are only worsening. Sea levels across the US coastline are projected to rise nearly a foot over the next thirty years. Some cities across the world, like Shanghai, expect nearly twice that, with two feet of projected sea level rise. This foot increase for the US in 30 years is equivalent to the levels the sea rose over the last hundred years (from 1920 to 2020). The ocean absorbs a third of humanity's carbon dioxide emissions and 90 percent of the excess heat generated by increased greenhouse gas emissions, which will only steadily increase the oceans average temperature over the next hundred years. Even if we managed to completely stop all carbon emissions all over the planet right now, (and that's a big if), the ocean will still continue to get warmer, which will in turn cause glaciers to melt and create higher sea levels along coastlines worldwide.

Rising sea levels are an inevitability we will have to confront.

With the ever looming threat of people’s homes being uninhabitable due to the encroachment of the ocean, plans have been made for “floating cities.” Habitats that would float on the water are being conceptualized, and albeit are mostly still in the realm of thought experiments. 40% of the world's population live within 100 kilometers of a coastline, but the buildings they live in didn’t have climate change in mind when they were constructed. The first city to sign onto the idea and have a floating city constructed is Busan, South Korea. This city is home to nearly 3 million people, it’s one of the busiest port cities in its country, and is projected to be partly underwater by 2030. The cities have a hexagonal shape in design, as it’s an efficient shape for resource management, like a honeycomb. Three hexagons will be designated as a “neighborhood”, and each one would have its own purpose. One for living, one for lodging, and one for research. The platforms are basically concrete caissons. This means there is a large hole on the bottom that creates space and buoyancy, allowing the large heavy hexagon to float with little to no issue. They will be tethered to the sea floor, so they can rise and fall naturally with the tides, and also so they don’t float off out into the sea and get lost out there. The hope is that the plans for this city would end up expanding to allow 100,000 South Korean citizens to live on the water, floating in this city. 

The city's design also aims to minimally affect the ocean life underneath. The way the cities plan to generate power is completely green and environmentally friendly. With the use of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC, power can be obtained from using the ocean’s natural warmth. The waste product of this power method also happens to be fresh water. This water can be used for growing crops, algae, or even drinking, since it's completely desalinated.  The city would also be littered with solar panels. We’re talking on the roofs of every single building. They would also use solar panels that can harvest water out of air humidity. With special solar panels, called Source, about five liters of water a day can be made out of, quite literally, thin air. Source was first utilized to power just one person’s house, which is where the five liter metric comes from. If they were used more frequently, they could create exponentially more water for the people living in the city to use. The material used to anchor the city to the seafloor is called “Biorock.” I mention this because it has a special property to it that will concentrate the minerals in ocean water around the material itself. This will create a limestone shell around the anchor, which will in turn act as an artificial reef. This will actually stimulate marine life, allowing both plants and animals a new area to thrive in. The city plans to be completely self-sufficient, while also not being detrimental to the fish it may float over.

The floating city, whether you want to accept it or not, is the future of human civilization. The project, designed by Oceanix, is being supported by the United Nations, so the project is here to stay until it’s completed. While there are many ways to combat rising sea levels, like sea walls, or elevating buildings, the floating cities might be our best chance for rising above the tides. The floating cities could be the homes for hundreds of thousands of people if everything works out just as the plans foretell. The only thing we can do now is wait… and sea… 

hehehe…

Work Cited: 

“Our Future of Living on the Water - Floating Cities?” YouTube, YouTube, 27 July 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt-lAFGJ_3o&list=PLPCtVrFhJPnfDklPAhLZLI0X8gkoMujwJ&index=5. Accessed 21 Mar. 2023.

“South Korea Is Building The World's First Floating City.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 June 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8FxQBgvfoo. Accessed 21 Mar. 2023.

Younger, Sally. “NASA Study: Rising Sea Level Could Exceed Estimates for U.S. Coasts – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.” NASA, NASA, 15 Nov. 2022, https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3232/nasa-study-rising-sea-level-could-exceed-estimates-for-us-coasts/#:~:text=By%202050%2C%20sea%20level%20along,three%20decades%20of%20satellite%20observations.