I was wondering about the implications of an actually attempted Atlantropa. Let's assume that in the 20s or 30s it gains enough support to be constructed. I'm suggesting 20s or 30s, but you can chose any POD, I'm mainly concerned purely with the project, not the geopolitical conditions allowing it. I have two main questions, what would be the impact of it, and what conditions are needed (ie political support, financing) for construction to begin?
What if Atlantropa was built?
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This:
It was a gigantic engineering and colonisation idea devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s and promoted by him until his death in 1952. Its central feature was a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, which would have provided enormous amounts of hydroelectricityand would have led to the lowering of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 metres (660 ft), opening up large new lands for settlement, for example in the Adriatic Sea. The project proposed four additional major dams as well
Zachariah
Banned
Ah. Well, that map looks far, FAR too green to be realistic. I'd anticipate desertification and environmental destruction on a par to (or even worse than, given the far greater area and even greater population density of the regions which would be directly afflicted by the repercussions of Atlantropa) the Soviet 'Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature' which turned the Aral Sea into the Aralkum Desert. In such a scenario, you'd likely see the Tabernas Desert, miniscule at the present time IOTL, expanding to encompass the entirety of the Levante region- the entire eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula, along with the expanded Balearic Islands and much of South-West France, would become desert, and effectively become an extension of the Sahara. Much of the merged island of Sardinia-Corsica would go the same way, as wouldmuch of the expanded island of Sicily. And practically all the land on the bottom and the right hand side of that map there would be either sandy desert or white salt flats. The result? Total desolation and near-total depopulation of the entire Mediterranean (and Black Sea) basins, all in the name of generating hydroelectric power to be provided to a population base which would no longer exist. I mean, it's not like there'd have been any way to export hydroelectric power cost-effectively, least of all over the kind of distances you'd need to reach any nations (or regions, rather- no telling what the political map of Europe would look like by the time the map looked like that) who wouldn't have been desolated by the cataclysmic ecological collapses which the project would have brought about...This:
It was a gigantic engineering and colonisation idea devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s and promoted by him until his death in 1952. Its central feature was a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, which would have provided enormous amounts of hydroelectricityand would have led to the lowering of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 metres (660 ft), opening up large new lands for settlement, for example in the Adriatic Sea. The project proposed four additional major dams as well
Insider
Banned
Well the intended purpose was never draining the Mediterranean Sea completely and the scenario you present seem to have just this in mind. The goal of Atlantropa in XXI century would be neither energy production nor joining Europe with Africa. If anything it would be preventing sea level rise.
Zachariah
Banned
But you'd still be diminishing the volume of the Mediterranean by a large margin, and draining the Mediterranean Sea to the extent proposed, lowering its surface elevation by 200m (or more), would still undoubtedly be enough to triggering a renewed Messinian salinity crisis. As winds blew across the "Mediterranean Sink", they would heat or cool adiabatically with altitude, with a dry adiabatic lapse rate of around 10°C (18°F) per kilometer of elevation- in other words, the new surface temperature of the Mediterranean, and the temperature of the winds which would blow across it, would be roughly 2°C hotter than it is now, as a result of the new 'Mediterranean Depression' being 200m below sea level. This would rapidly increase the rate of evaporation and the process of salination, which would only be exacerbated by the fact that you'd no longer have any outflows. Today, the evaporation from the Mediterranean Sea supplies moisture that falls in frontal storms, but evaporation still greatly exceeds precipitation and river runoff in the Mediterranean, a fact that is central to the water circulation within the basin. Evaporation is especially high in its eastern half, causing the water level to decrease and salinity to increase eastward with this evaporation.
It's already one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world for this reason, with up to 40% salinity in the East along the coasts of the Levant, similar to that of the Red Sea- and by lowering the basin by 200m, you'd increase temperatures, salinity and dessification to markedly higher levels than those of the Read Sea today. As a result, the Mediterranean climate that we associate with Italy, Greece, and the Levant would be limited to the west of the Iberian Peninsula and the western Maghreb; climates throughout the central and eastern basin of the Mediterranean, and surrounding regions to the north and east, would be markedly drier, even above modern sea level. The eastern Alps, the Balkans, and the Hungarian plain would also be much drier than they are today, even if the westerlies prevailed as they do now. In effect, if you did this, then you'd be extending the Eurasian Steppes ecoregion all the way along the Alps and the Pyrenees right to the sea, and you'd be changing the climate of the entirety of Europe south of the Alps to match those of Iran and Central Asia. And this amount of disastrous localized warming and climate change in the Mediterranean basin, equivalent to that projected as a result of global warming over the course of the entirety of the 21st century, would take place over the course of just five or ten years- only a tenth to a twentieth of the timeframe. Result? Apocalyptic.
All I know about this is that it is what happened in the Star Trek universe according to Gene Roddenberry.
The social chaos would be interesting, what to do when your port city becomes landlocked?
The social chaos would be interesting, what to do when your port city becomes landlocked?
It happened in the novelization of the first Star Trek movie, with no references thereafter. Perhaps the New Atlantis Project was a revisiting of the idea in the TV series?
Back to the Altantropa discussion, I can only imagine it happening if you could either somehow get a regional consensus that these changes would be good, or if these changes were directed by an outside power.
Zachariah
Banned
What, like the Dominion of Draka? Or the Wolfenstein universe Nazis, or the Soviets in a Red Alert universe victory scenario?
In particular
AHC: Roman Atlantropa
AHC: Close The Strait Of Gibraltar
[URL='https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/atlantropa-plan.293027/']Atlantropa plan
AHC/WI/TL: Atlantropa gets built post Great War
[URL='https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/abandoned-proposed-feasible-megaprojects.228330/']Abandoned/Proposed Feasible Megaprojects
What is the earliest point a dam could be built across the strait of gibraltar?
Widespread Macro-engineering
Atlantropa is BUILT
Nazi Government Dams the Mediterranean
Atlantropa, possible?
AH Wonders of the World
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Pretty much. Even then, I would think that the government(s) involved would have to be misled about the consequences. I can't think of anyone who would prefer a desertified Mediterranean basin to the productive environment that exists there now.
Interesting idea actually. Atlantropa would never be constructive with the technology we know up till today. Creating Atlantropa could only be destructive. So it would have to be part of a punitive effort to weaken the Mediterranean forever. A really alternate "WW2" (a similar war with a POD centuries and centuries in the past), where the entire Mediterranean is the enemy of the winning side could do the trick.
Alternatively, maybe far far in the future if fusion energy becomes viable and solar energy is much more efficient than today, desalination could be cheap enough that, after damming the Mediterranean to create more dry land, it would be relatively easy to irrigate all the new land with desalinated water. But if desalination is that cheap, then terraforming the already existing Sahara, Sonora, Gobi, Arabian, and Australian deserts would probably be more viable.
Maybe as the icing on the cake of a Nazi victory dystopia timeline, where the Nazis continued the project and dismissed the scientific arguments against it as a Judeo-Bolshevik plot.
Napoleonrules
Banned
I get that there may be information in those threads that can be useful, however when I see people post this type of post it comes across as "we've discussed this before and all good ideas were mentioned, you have nothing new to contribute"; I read it as unintentional rudeness. Some may not have been members back then and we may want to have a NEW conversation and present ideas about the topic.
Which is why I said it happened according to Roddenberry.
I was always disappointed when I watched the show and saw a boring old normal Med.
I don't get why we can't just resurrect older threads, if people want to talk about something that's already been discussed, then in many cases I think it's best to start where there are already a few pages of solid information - and you may have a good point to make on that thread.
Of course, I may have a certain bias.