Transmat World: Why the Oceans Will Be Humanity’s Life Raft

It’s the year 2100. Nobody lives near the coast. Too dangerous. Hurricane Xena took out Miami in 2085. Most coastal cities have been ravaged. Besides, the land has been soaked with seawater so many times, it won’t grow but the hardiest saline-loving plants. Ports are the only inhabited portions of coastline. Ports are specially designed to shelter people and vessels. Ports are very expensive nowadays. The water is always rising, claiming more land. People build sturdy houses on high ground away from the coast. Many build in the ground on high ground, living in basement caves. The good thing about the coast is it doesn’t stink as much now as when the great aquatic die-offs were taking place.

The political will wasn’t there to fight climate change until the middle of the century, when truly scary things begin to happen. People started living in their vehicles to escape locally violent winds, floods, heat, and snowstorms. Insects and wild animals became rare. Dead things mummified instead of rotting to a skeleton. People don’t even wonder about that now. Hurricane names went through the alphabet every year with half being Cat 4 or better. The weather alternated between violent storms and extended drought. The Southwestern United States went five years without a drop of rain. Annual rainfall in the northeast increased to over 100 inches per year. Crops failed. Many died of starvation. A chunk of methane hydrate the size of Manhattan surfaced off the coast of San Francisco. Lightning set it ablaze, and it burned for six years. Scientists say this is fortunate. The evaporating methane would have been worse for the atmosphere than its products of combustion.

The nations of Earth finally came together in 2050 to pass laws. Fossil fuel usage is now rare. Wind, hydro, biomass, wave, solar, nuclear fission and fusion are what power everything. All vehicles, including planes, run on hydrogen made by hydrolysis of water. Population growth is under control. Weather related deaths have leveled off to two billion since 2050. In 2100, the world’s population is only eight billion, not the eleven billion projected in the early part of the 21st century.

The average global temperature has started to stabilize as huge CO2 sequestration plants suck it from the air and turn it into plastic and lubricating oils. The seas are still warm and acidic with few creatures sturdy enough to survive the low oxygen levels. Yet, this is where the majority of humans now live - on the vast oceans. You see, it is only the top 200 meter layer of the oceans that is warm. The next layer is the 1000 meter thermocline which separates the surface ocean from the deep ocean. The deep ocean represents 80-90 percent of the oceans’ volume and is frigidly cold. While the surface layer takes about 100 years to mix temperatures, the deep ocean works on a longer timeline - 1,000 to 100,000 years. The cold melt from those disappearing glaciers and arctic ice over the past 150 years seeped to the bottom of the ocean becoming part of this vast reservoir of coolness not thought about until it was absolutely necessary.

Mankind retreated to the sea. With a pipe stuck 1200 meters into the ocean, one can draw out 32-45 degree Fahrenheit water. Run it through a heat exchanger along with ambient air and cold, pure condensate comes pouring out, dripping off the coils. It is used for drinking, bathing, growing crops, and trade with the people who still live on land. The cold, dry air gushing out of that same heat exchanger is used for refrigeration and air conditioning. The best thing, though, is the still cool, oxygenated, nutrient dense sea water that floods the insulated fish tanks where the precious sea creatures saved from the dying oceans thrive. Some are grown for food, but many simply find sanctuary from the warm death on the other side of their tank wall. As cool ocean water warms, it is released into the ocean. Still cooler than the ambient water, it helps to bring down the temperature of the world's oceans.

Moveable, manmade islands proliferated and became nations. They number in the thousands now from the tiny Gilligan's with a population of seven to the huge New Miami with a population of 150,000. Some islands are engineered for safety, efficiency, and longevity. Some are cobbled together from sea barges and yachts. Ocean liners and merchant vessels sometimes form the nucleus. Even aircraft carriers and other military ships form parts of the hundreds of island nations that dot the seas. Large vessels make good bases for the big wind turbines that stretch into the sky above the islands. It is hard to pick out individual vessels as most everything is covered in dense vegetation. Flashes of light reflected from windows dispersed through the greenery are the only indication of dwellings underneath the plant growth.

Floating solar farms surround the islands with channels through them, accessing the ports near the center of the islands. From these same ports, deep sea drones launch to the bottom of the ocean, looking for wrecks and mineral treasures and to monitor the temperature and condition of the most precious commodity left to humanity - the ocean deep’s cold-water refuge from the heat. We can only hope that it lasts until the Earth is healed.