Posted on 08/11/2018 5:32:44 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Oregon and the University of Wisconsin says that internet cables will be underwater in 15 years, and it's too late to stop it.
Coauthor Dr. Carol Barford said that she and the other researchers had expected to see some overlap in infrastructure and shorelines, but the timing surprised them.
"The main thing that we didn't expect was that it would be so soon," Barford told AccuWeather.
In 2015, Barford's two coauthors, Paul Barford and Ramakrishnan Durairajan, contributed to a study that mapped out the infrastructure of the internet in the United States.
The results of the study when laying out the map from the previous study and comparing it to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predictions of the future shoreline shows that New York City, Miami and Seattle are at the highest risk.
Barford estimated that about one-fifth to one-fourth of the fibers that make up the internet in a city such as New York will be underwater on a normal day at high tide.
The study lists CenturyLink, Intelliquent and AT&T as companies that are at the most risk, and it summarizes the key takeaway as "developing mitigation strategies should begin soon."
While the fibers were designed to be water and weather resistant, they were not designed to be underwater, the study notes.
The paper does not list how being under water will affect internet connection, but Barford noted how it could hurt the physical components of it.
Barford said that the water molecules can seep into any micro-cracks of the tubes and into the glass fibers, causing signals to slow down or be lost.
"The movement of the signal is not as reliable when wet," Barford said
Water can also damage the lines and nodes when it freezes in the tubes, thaws out and then repeats the cycle. The result is cracked or broken pieces.
Lastly, water sloshing around in the conduit can jostle or break fibers.
With the internet waterlogged, it won’t only impact coastal cities. Barford said that due to the network connections, there will be effects on traffic trans-nationally, through the Midwest.
It also has a chance to impact the Trans-Oceanic cables that run under the ocean floor and connect to a landing point and radiate out into the land-based network. It’s that meeting point that may be at risk.
Barford said that although things can change in the next century, the results are set for the next 15 years.
"As far as things happening in the next 10 to 15 years, they're pretty locked-in because there's a lot of inertia in the climate system," Barford said. "Even if we all stop driving cars and burning natural gas right now, it really wouldn't make a difference 15 years from now. So we're going to have flooded internet. The question is how to deal with it in the near term."
Barford summarized three different options that people are considering to approach the problem.
The first is the most expensive, which involves digging up the cables and nodes near flood areas and replacing them with waterproof counterparts.
The complications come in the time and money required to dig up those parts, most of which are along other types of infrastructure such as roads and railways. Another cost added to this option would be the waterproof cables.
Due to the expenses and logistics, Barford describes this option as unattractive.
The second option is to abandon the lines that are in danger of water damage and build new ones on higher ground.
"Some people have suggested that actually would be good with two fronts of infrastructure," Barford said. "Some of the old stuff could even be used if it wasn't flooded."
The third option is to reroute the internet traffic. Barford said she doesn't understand how people with the waterlogged internet would still get service with this option, but that in general, "a lot of the need could be met by rerouting traffic through infrastructure that is on high ground."
When overlaying the infrastructure maps with the NOAA sea level rise predictions, Barford said they used the “high” scenario from the site because the association recommended using this setting when evaluating expensive or long-term infrastructure.
“Anytime you’re risking an investment and something really big that would be really bad if you lost it, then you have to consider the more serious end of things,” Barford said.
The second reason for using this model is that it takes the effects of greenhouse gases on the climate change into consideration for its prediction.
“It’s based on a business-as-usual greenhouse gas emission scenario, which the way we’re going seems a pretty likely thing for the next few years. We’re kind of doing business as usual, if not worse,” Barford said.
Since the high prediction that they employed was published in 2012, NOAA has published an “extreme” scenario, now the highest tier and more devastating prediction.
“It all seems very grim, but it definitely substantiates the idea that it’s worth looking at the more serious scenarios, and that there’s really no use to be optimistic in the near term.”
Barford said the inevitable change comes from the inertia in the climate system, the effects of past greenhouse gas emissions carrying over and catching up.
"There's a lot of heating and sea level rise that is just going to happen," Barford said. "And then hopefully we can get our act together and make the consequences less severe for people living later on in the century."
“Rising sea levels could leave internet cables underwater within 15 years, study says”
God’s net neutrality plan.
Wasn’t New York supposed to be under water by now?
Rising sea levels could leave internet cables underwater within 15 years, study says
Another government grant wasted.
They are TOTALLY unreliable.
I call them, ‘InAccuWeather’ as in, “InAccuWeather says it’s going to rain, so don’t bother to take an umbrella!” ;)
It's raining in Florida, should I blame Global Warming? No, it's natural!!!
This should be accompanied by Oldeconomybuyer’s picture of Joe Goebbels.
Which leads me to wonder..... Why did they place the cables 2 inches above water level in the first place?
Seriously, the left is so invested in climate doom that they have gone into an irrational world of a bizarre fantasy. Their minds may be unrecoverable at this point.
I was totally unaware that they are floating today.
LOL - I see what you did :)
Can’t wait for 15 years from now to see how foolish this is......when there is little to no sea rise........
As a past owner of a large fiber optic system I can say a pole broke and our aerial fiber fell in a pond. That was 10 years ago. It still works just fine.
Well, Al Gore said that parts of New York would be under water, by his calculation from his stupid movie, this year.
Fifty five years ago I read a novel that I have forgotten the name of. It dealt with a mastermind who was going to blow up underwater cliffs in the north Atlantic allowing the gulf stream to penetrate the Arctic, melt the ice and flood the low lying parts of the world.
It appears flooding the world is still the nightmare of some people.
Meanwhile on the West Coast it used to be fear of earthquakes dropping Cali into the ocean. Remember this song from 1969?
Day after day, more people come to L.A.
Ssh! Don’t you tell anybody the whole place is slipping away.
Where can we go when there’s no San Francisco?
Ssh! Better get ready to tie up the boat in Idaho.
Just have a Wifi with repeaters every 100 ft.
I remember when the GPS satellites were going to stop working because of Republicans cutting the budget.
Keep in mind, this is just a study. Hopefully a commission is assembled and staff hired to investigate the legitimacy of the findings.
Don’t recall that song.
I moved to Hollywood in ‘68 and experienced a number of minor quakes - enough to shake & shimmy buildings I was in at the time.
I still recall the Manson murders were more prevalent in the news than any quake tremors...perhaps because they occurred just a few minutes from my Hollywood apt.
Eventually, I regained my senses and returned to Ohio before it became Hollyweird.
They tell me the fault line runs right through here
So that may be, that may be,
What's gonna happen, gonna happen to me
That's the the way it appears
They tell me the fault line runs right through here
Atlantis will rise, Sunset Boulevard will fall
Where the beach use to be won't be nothin' at all
That's the way it appears
They tell me the fault line runs right through here
So that may be, that may be,
What's gonna happen gonna happen to me
That's the way it appears
They tell me the fault line runs right through here
They tell me the fault line runs right through here
Mamas and Papas
California Earthquake
Cables are generally buried. So if this is true the cables would be underneath the new sea floor and not in immediate danger.
Cables in urban areas are typically in conduits under the street. If the streets are flooded with sea water they will have worse problems than deteriorating internet service. Parts of the cities would have to be vacated or relocated.
All of this would likely take place over centuries with plenty of time for normal technology changes to occur.
i had no idea ocean rising was so selective, picking out only internet cables to flood, while leaving underground power cables, telephone cables, subways and auto tunnels high and dry ...
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