Total Displacement
 

A friend posed an interesting question. What is the total displacement of all the boats, ships, watercraft, in the world? And how much would that raise the sea level?
At first I thought is was silly, the total displacement couldn't possibly be more than a drop in the bucket on a planet that's 70% water. But I could be wrong, I was once in 1964. :lol:

1 million cubic meters of displacement would add less than three millionths of a millimeter, if I did my calculations right.

I then looked up total displacement of ships, only to find that XKCD already did the calculation. Using his estimate of 2.15 billion cubic meters of displacement, I come out to 0.006 mm, which matches his result.

Excellent find. :notworthy

If ya replaced ships with melted icebergs/glaciers...

You'd have a lot more tonnage, but they're hard to steer.


They've already done that calculation too. 70 meters.

I guess that's why they don't use outboard motors to move the bergs outta the shipping lanes, huh?

Back in the late 60s or early 70s I read where someone had proposed towing an iceberg from Antarctica for the water needs of Los Angeles, they figured it would take a team of tugs several years to get there. they gave up on it.

If any thing it would drop the water line
think about it , displaced water has to go some where ,
no resistance so up it goes
doesn't coruthers do ships , or was that an other Brit cellerite

Tough to move bergs because they'll roll over on you. Also take anything attached to them, over with them.
To make the water level go down take all the fish out. Oh, and gold, all the sunken gold, send it to me.. keep the fish.

Thanks for all the fish

Apparently, it's been done.

"Mid 1800s: According to the Encyclopedia of Antartica, small icebergs were towed from southern Chile up to Valparaiso as part of the brewery supply chain. A Chilean researcher said, "The icebergs were towed by ships of the conventional type. Sometimes the icebergs were supplied with sails to utilize the prevailing winds. The ice was used for refrigerating purposes in the breweries and was generally substituted for artificial ice." Apparently, the business continued until about the turn of the century."

Beer is the mother of all innovation.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...chemes/243364/

The century has turned twice since then. :haha:
The bergs breaking off now seem to be miles long.