In The Next 15 Years, Major Cities In The U.S. Could Be Flooded, Wiping Out The Internet

Aug 29, 2018

The Butterfly Effect is the scientific theory that a minor change within a larger, complicated system (particularly a chaotic one) can cause large-scale, unpredictable changes. It's named after Ray Bradbury's novel, "The Sound Of Thunder."

In the novel, a time-traveler accidentally steps on and kills a single butterfly. When he returns to the future, the entire world is slightly different, including the language and world leaders. Small changes cause great disturbances.

This effect applies to climate change.

In this situation, rising global temperatures are the butterfly. Due to these increasing temperatures, the ice caps are melting, causing the oceans to slowly rise. Rising oceans lead to the flooding of coastal cities, like Miami, New York, Seattle and San Francisco, as well as many more outside of the United States. If it's near the coast, it will be flooded. This will clearly cause some problems - to begin, millions will be displaced from their homes and jobs. Basic things like public transportation, the mail system and electricity will be inoperable. That's only a few of the consequences.

As the Butterfly Effect states, we cannot possibly predict all of the end results. We do know that they will be vast and almost impossible to reverse.

The Internet will be one of the many things hurt by flooding. Each of the major cities listed has thousands of miles of Internet cables buried beneath it. While these wires are designed to be resistant to water and natural freeze/thaw cycles, they won't be able to handle the perpetual submersion brought on by rising oceans.

Therefore - when the oceans rise, and cities flood, they and everyone around them will also lose access to the Internet. While some may not care about the Internet outage, the fact is that the Internet has become a staple of everyday living. Millions of people use it to stay in contact with loved ones, work, relax, catch current events, shop and find valuable resources and information.

Like it or not, we need the Internet.

Paul Barford, Carol Barford and Ramakrishnan Durairajan are professors at the University of Oregon and University of Wisconsin-Madison. They co-authored an academic paper that goes in detail about the situation. In the paper, they estimate that 4,067 miles of fiber cables and 1,101 Internet nodes will be either submerged, or surrounded by water within the next 15 years.

This timetable is astonishingly immediate - when asked about it, Paul Barford remarked, "That surprised us. The expectation was that we’d have 50 years to plan for it. We don’t have 50 years."

Climate change may seem far away, but it definitely impacts you and your life, especially if you frequent the Internet.

Do you live in a coastal city, or do you know someone who lives there? Give your thoughts on the situation and consider checking out the paper for yourself.