Re: American War a dystopic novel

Robert Carnegie wrote:

On 31/08/2024 00:03, William Hyde wrote:

Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 8/29/2024 11:52 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

I read this in May of 2017
  "American War"- set in a future of Global Warming and post American
Civil War II.  No Florida and the Southern Coast is depleted.
     The Big Bay* is in Central California.  I.e. the Central Valley
and San Joaquin Valley are flooded.  Only the high points of
the San Francisco Bay Area remain above water.
     A Free Southern State exists with a quarantine zone in South
Carolina.  Florida is gone. New Orleans is gone.
     A Mexican Protectorate extends past San Francisco and takes
up the Southern-Most tier of Western states.
>
     The narrator of the tale of the female protagonist lives in
New Anchorage, Alaska where they might see frost on the
windows in  January, but it never snows.  Alaska is a Neutral
State
`    The author is one Omar El Akkad.
>
     The ACW II takes place from 2074-2095 caused by the
Southern states unwillingness to abide by the ban on
Fossil Fuels finally enacted.  Florida is gone.
     A girl's father is murdered and a thirst for revenge
grows within her as the War goes on.  Horrendous acts
are done on each side and the protagonist does the
final horrendous act of the War, which kills the last
of her relatives but not intentionally.
>
     It could be sub-titled Fall of the American Empire!
>
     bliss

>
Tallahassee, Florida (the panhandle) is 203 feet above sea level.  Is that underwater ?

>
Maximum elevation 266, minimum 7, average 118.
>
I believe we discussed  this some time ago.  Even if all the ice sheets go, together with the geoid's adjustment to the lack of  the Antarctic ice sheet's gravity, a fragment of Florida would still exist.  Looks like Tallahassee would survive as a couple of small islands. Which seems to be what the novel says.
>
Such melting will not occur by 2075, but we allow far greater distortions of science for a good story.
>
Akkad is not principally an SF writer.

 Warm water rises.
 

Water over 4C does expand with heat, but very little.  Sea level rise in the Cretaceous due to warmth was about 20m (I once calculated that and was considering putting it in a paper when I discovered that it had been done twenty years earlier ... at least we got the same answer).
Sea level rise due to thermal expansion is happening, but I would be surprised if the warming by 2075 added as much as a meter in this way, even in the extreme scenario of the book.  And this is in the noise given other uncertainties.
In the case of a return-to-Cretaceous scenario twenty meters could be added, but there would be a lag of some thousands of years before the warmer temperatures affected the deep ocean.
Plausibility is nice, but not required for a good story.  "The Great Nebraska Sea" is totally implausible but enjoyable.
William Hyde