Tackling rising oceans with style
By Shaunacy Ferro Posted 04.04.2013 at 12:58 pm 9 Comments

Blooming Oceans
Blooming Oceans Courtesy Sitbon Architectes

Scientists estimate that the sea level will rise 9 inches or more by 2030, up to more than 6.6 feet by 2100. In anticipation of a far wetter world, French architecture firm Sitbon Architectes designed this pod concept for a habitable, eco-friendly phytoplankton farm in the Indian Ocean.

Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that form the foundation of the aquatic food chain. They use chlorophyll to turn sunlight into energy, absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen like land plants. They can have explosive population growth, known as a bloom, expanding over hundreds of square kilometers in the ocean.

Moored to the ocean floor, the farm, called Bloom, would be a 5-story, partially-submerged center where scientists could live and grow phytoplankton, reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and releasing oxygen. In the process, it could serve as an alert system for rising waters in the event of a tsunami. (Though it doesn't look like the best place to actually ride out a tsunami, with its many air holes.)

Bloom
Bloom:  Courtesy Sitbon Architectes

The project was a finalist in Architizer's 2013 A+ Awards. The firm envisions that "every factory would have its own bloom allowing it to absorb the CO2 that it created." Plus, it looks like it could involve a lot of fun water sports.

[plusMOOD]

9 Comments

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cholin3947
04/04/13 at 1:34 pm

"...Scientists estimate that the sea level will rise 9 inches or more by 2030, up to more than 6.6 feet by 2100.."

Exactly which scientist are these? Even the UN has back off such claims. All I see here is a few pretty concept drawings, no real sceince-popular or otherwise.

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AnyIcon
04/04/13 at 3:22 pm

If they dig a channel at the cave of Antarctica for the hollow earth entrance, we could drain some of the water into Earth, thereby holding back the rise of the oceans! Of course, this might drown a great many inner Earth alien cities and cause a human\alien war. Still, this is an option.

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Onihikage
04/04/13 at 5:11 pm

You wouldn't have to ride out a Tsunami in this, because those only form large waves when they get very close to the shoreline. Before then, they're just a big ripple.

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cholin3947
04/04/13 at 5:56 pm

AnyIcon,

I can't tell if your being sarcastic or super crazy.

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AnyIcon
04/04/13 at 7:15 pm

cholin3947,
Is that because you have alien friends at inner Earth?

LOL

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FotoBum
04/04/13 at 7:48 pm

Shaunacy, again, why do you report to us that the ocean will rise 1/2 inch each year for the next 90 YEARS?? Why not just say 3 or 5 inches a year?
I can't image being a public school kid now a days. Image this stuff all day long in school with no one to question it. Dumb, faulty science force-fed as fact. I'm ready for recess!

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truehawk
04/04/13 at 7:54 pm

Cholin3947

The East Coast saw a rise of a foot as measured by Satellite because the Gulf Stream Slowed down ab about the same time that Sandy hit.
The other thing to deal with is the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of water. The SCIENCE is that as long as there two phases, Ice and Liquid the temperature will be moderated by the energy required by the phase change. That is why ice keeps your drink cold. Once the Artic ice is gone, the ocean can heat rapidly and when water heats up, like every thing else, it expands. This is not taken into account in most of the calculations. When this happens the sea level rise will be quite a bit more that two meters.
The US Navy has some prime real estate that is in the process of being flooded out. They are on the front lines of sea level rise and not at all in denial.

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dick7517
04/04/13 at 9:32 pm

I believe we need too do more about climate change. After saying that, I am from the USA and have been living in the Philippines since 1988. I live in Leyte and the sea level has not rising as far as I can see. I think the alarmists are doing a disservice too the environmentalists by putting forth such alarming statements.

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