Atlantica. Environmental Affects?

Well now I am in the making of a timeline. This timeline here is unique as around the area and length of the Atlantic Underwater Mountain Range, there is a long contienent.

What I want to know, is what would be the environmental affects of having a continent smack dab in the Atlantic streching from the Middle North Atlantic down to lower South America.

I know this would affect the ocean currents, and would cool down Europe, but to what extent?
 

Blackwood

Banned
Just a quick question - isn't this similar to Turtledove's Opening Atlantis?

From Wikipedia -
________________________________________________________
"The Atlantis Series

An as yet unfinished trilogy of books which describes a world where the American eastern coast from the tip of Florida to New Brunswick breaks away from the mainland millions of years in the past and has an island biotaNew Zealand's. Discovered in 1453 and named Atlantis, this eighth continent becomes a focal point in a gradually diverging timeline. At least two short stories, "Audubon in Atlantis" and "The Scarlet Band" have been set in this milieu. similar to____________________________________________________

As for actual question, I'm afraid I don't know...:eek: Hopefully there's someone knowledgeable about such matters here.
 
Just a quick question - isn't this similar to Turtledove's Opening Atlantis?

From Wikipedia -
________________________________________________________
"The Atlantis Series

An as yet unfinished trilogy of books which describes a world where the American eastern coast from the tip of Florida to New Brunswick breaks away from the mainland millions of years in the past and has an island biotaNew Zealand's. Discovered in 1453 and named Atlantis, this eighth continent becomes a focal point in a gradually diverging timeline. At least two short stories, "Audubon in Atlantis" and "The Scarlet Band" have been set in this milieu. similar to____________________________________________________

As for actual question, I'm afraid I don't know...:eek: Hopefully there's someone knowledgeable about such matters here.

Nope. Not technically a break off of N. America.
 
Well, it depends on if it intercepts the gulf stream and where. If it was north/west enough, it could send the warm water up to the west of Greenland and against northern Canada. It'd be slightly warmer there and Europe would be under glaciers.

But really it's almost impossible to tell.
 
It would be stormy to the n'th degree, I figure,. Reason being is that with all that gulf current being channelled so focused north, and the colder jet stream coming off northern Canada, it would be a serious barrier for any explorer going west. I would more than likely buffer NA culture, and health a lot longer, until Asians of some nationality, be it Japanese, Chinese, shoot Polynesian. Or the Aztecs go crazy and go north against the Iroquois Confed., and speed up technological development on the whole.

Ya Europe would probably be under ice, but on the same coin, the Sahara would not be the desert it is today, it would probably have the climate of mid to southern Europe, while N Africa would be more like Northern Canada.

That's what my geo prof and I came up with. I really liked the idea of a Aztec, Iroquois war... the only way I could see it happen is if they go south first, and take out the Incas and domesticate the alpaca as a war animal.
 
It would be stormy to the n'th degree, I figure,. Reason being is that with all that gulf current being channelled so focused north, and the colder jet stream coming off northern Canada, it would be a serious barrier for any explorer going west. I would more than likely buffer NA culture, and health a lot longer, until Asians of some nationality, be it Japanese, Chinese, shoot Polynesian. Or the Aztecs go crazy and go north against the Iroquois Confed., and speed up technological development on the whole.

Ya Europe would probably be under ice, but on the same coin, the Sahara would not be the desert it is today, it would probably have the climate of mid to southern Europe, while N Africa would be more like Northern Canada.

That's what my geo prof and I came up with. I really liked the idea of a Aztec, Iroquois war... the only way I could see it happen is if they go south first, and take out the Incas and domesticate the alpaca as a war animal.

Thats what I thought would happen for Europe, and possiblt for the Sahara. Alrighty!

Well, I did maintain the thought of the Carthiginians and Phoneocians who were the first to go through the gibralter to find the land and settle a colony or antirely new City-State on it. But with the change in climate for Africa and Europe alot of early period human migrations will have to be thought upon.
 
According to this nifty applet (from this site), the sea level would have to fall about 3KM (@1.8 miles) to naturally reveal the Atlantic Ridge.


It would catch the bottom of the Gulf Stream but all of the Azores current. This would probably move the currents northwards, making Scandinavia and Greenland more habitable and the British Isles about the same, but it would cool the rest of western Europe. I don't think it would block the Canary or North Equatorial Currents.

There's a possibility that this could cool the East Coast because water from the Gulf Stream goes down the Atlantic coast of Europe and back across in the North Equatorial Current.

In an effort to keep things predictable, i'd say go with the Gulf Stream hitting Iceland and splitting into larger East Greenland and Norwegian Currents, and a super Rennel Current, but with no Azores Current. This would lead to a cooler, but still habitable, Europe.

Looking at the sucky map i just made, it looks like the North Sea could be quite chilly as well. But, maybe not.



The map i was working off of.
This is a pretty sucky map, but good for getting the names of the currents.
A better map that i just found, looks much better but is very large.

currents.PNG
 
The Empires of Mali, and eastern Africa would be able to make first contact with the First Nations, that could leave a flip on how Africa would dominate Europe, resource wise.

Does the sea level have to drop? What if it rose up by some cataclysmic meteors, like the ones that caused a flood in 7640 bc.
 
I was thinking more of a somewhat thin but long contient that pretty much was on the Atlantic ridge from north of the Azores down to lower Brazil.

(Map of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge)

AtlanticBathy.jpg
 
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