Homo sapiens.

The visitor poured himself hot coffee and said, "Minsk, there is a severe flood upstream."

"As expected." Minsk walked in from the side and closed the door casually.

The Ob River, the Yenisei River, and the Lena River are flood-prone areas, especially when winter has just entered and thawed. This is a Lingxun-type flood.

Now the lower reaches of the Ob River have been completely frozen, while the upper reaches are in a lower latitude area, where it has not yet been frozen. The lower reaches are blocked by ice, and the river will rapidly swell, causing floods.

The man took a sip of hot coffee and exhaled, "We need to make plans early!"

Minsk put the telescope back into the locker, and looked at the topographic map of the entire Western Xianberia Plain on the wall. He knew that if the world continued to change, the Western Xianberia Plain would soon become a restricted area for humans.

Because judging from the terrain of the entire Western Xianbelia, we know that under the global cooling environment, the northern part will be covered by the Arctic ice sheet, and the southern part will become a freshwater swamp and lake.

The reason he was so sure was the terrain.

The altitude of the Western Xianberia Great Plain is too low, with the Ural Mountains on the west, the Central Xianberia Plateau on the east, the Altai Mountains in the southeast, and the Central Asian steppe with a relatively high altitude in the southwest.

This terrain is a typical basin terrain, and the surrounding water will naturally converge in the Western Xianbelia Plain.

It used to be a large area of ​​lakes and swamps, but later the climate warmed up, coupled with the large-scale reclamation of Lucia, a seasonal agricultural area was formed in the southern part of the Western Xianbelia Great Plains.

Once the Arctic ice cap spreads to the Ob Bay and forms a long-term frozen state, it means that the water resources that flow into the Western Xianberia Great Plains will not be able to flow into the Arctic Ocean. These waters will accumulate over time and form a larger area. lakes and swamps.

However, Minsk discovered that this year the Ob Bay was frozen more than a month earlier.

The frost-free period in the local area was only about four months, but now it has been cut in half, leaving only about two months.

That's why colleagues in Minsk are worried, thinking that this small city has lost its meaning of existence.

After all, there is only a two-month frost-free period, and there is no way to grow potatoes.

Global cooling has dealt a severe blow to high-latitude regions. This year, the suitable living zone for human beings has been squeezed down by about 5 latitudes.

Facing this horrible natural disaster, Caesar also felt the insignificance and powerlessness of human beings. Now he can only organize archaeological personnel to see if there is any ancient technology that can be used at home, and at the same time introduce his uncle's technology and investment.

All in all, among the four major powers, the Europa Consortium and Lucia are both in crisis, and America can barely be self-sufficient.

The last one, on the contrary, became the best-maintained one of the four major powers because of the terrain, previous reserves, and a relatively complete industrial chain.

Chapter 542 Frozen Planet

Suez Canal.

To be precise, it is the first Suez Canal, because there are currently two Suez Canals.

The Second Suez Canal is the one dug independently by Homo Sapiens, while the First Suez Canal is the old canal.

Recently, the First Suez Canal has stopped shipping services. There are many reasons for the suspension of shipping services.

The relationship between Homo sapiens and the free world is not good. In order to avoid the Suez Canal controlled by Homo sapiens, the free world is trying to bypass the Suez Canal.

For example, investing in the construction of the Mediterranean-Dead Sea-Red Sea Canal, the construction of land oil and gas pipelines in West Asia, the construction of the Eurasian Railway, or the use of Arctic routes and North Pacific routes.

After various plans, the shipping volume of the Suez Canal declined rapidly, leaving only Homo Sapiens and some marginal world ships passing through the Suez Canal.

As for the First Suez Canal, which has aging facilities and relatively low standards, there are not many ships passing through it at all, and it is only used as a supplement and backup channel for the Second Suez Canal.

After all, the channel depth of the first Suez Canal is only 22.5 meters, and the width is not enough. The channel of more than 100 kilometers needs 14 to 16 hours of navigation time.

The second Suez Canal newly built by Homo Sapiens has a single-lane channel width of 860-900 meters and an average depth of 35 meters, which is enough to navigate a 50-ton giant ship.

More importantly, the navigation time only takes 7-8 hours.

Therefore, with the opening of the Second Suez Canal, the First Suez Canal was naturally left out.

However, this is not the main reason for the recent closure of the First Suez Canal.

The main reason Homo sapiens stopped using the First Suez Canal was due to the drop in sea level.

As the ice sheets of Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean gradually expand, and plateau alpine glaciers around the world also begin to develop again, more and more water resources are fixed in the ice sheets and ice sheets.

This caused the sea level to begin to drop. According to current data, the sea level will drop by about 12 centimeters per month on average.

At this time, the global sea level has dropped by about 1.8 meters.

If the trend of global cooling cannot be reversed, the global sea level will drop by an average of 1.4 to 1.5 meters per year in the future until it reaches the peak of the ice age.

According to previous geological historical data, under normal circumstances, the global sea level during the peak period of the ice age will be about 2020 to 90 meters lower than the sea level in 100.

Of course, this is generally the case. In some extreme cases, the sea level may drop by 200 meters.

According to this situation, it has just entered the ice age, and it is estimated that it will take about 50 years to develop into the full ice age.

Moreover, the development of ice sheets and glaciers during the ice age has a characteristic, that is, it is relatively rapid in the early stage, and it will become slower and slower in the later stage.

It is conservatively estimated that it may take about 100 years for this ice age to develop to its full height.

Therefore, the depth of the First Suez Canal at this time is only 20.7 meters, and it is still declining. This depth is not conducive to navigation.

In addition, there were not many transport ships going through this canal, so the company directly deactivated the First Suez Canal with a swipe of the pen and upgraded the old canal.

In fact, this is also a problem that all major waterways around the world will have to face in the future, especially waterways with an average water depth of less than 120 meters. As the world becomes colder, sea levels will gradually decrease, and these waterways will be difficult to use.

For example, the Black Sea Strait controlled by Ottoman in name, a large part of the channel depth of this strait is less than 120 meters.

Even the two Central American canals that use ship locks must find a way to re-adjust the channel, and even add several ship locks before they can barely navigate.

Similarly, the Strait of Malacca and the Kra Canal will also encounter this problem.

Fortunately, the Homo sapiens company's canal excavation technology is very powerful, and can continue to deepen the canal as the sea level drops, ensuring the normal navigation of the canal.

This is also the reason why the free world gave up digging the Mediterranean-Dead Sea-Red Sea canal, because now that it has been dug, the sea level will continue to drop in the future, and whether it can be navigated stably has become an uncertain thing.

In addition, the Mediterranean-Dead Sea-Red Sea Canal has another fatal weakness, which is another outlet of the Red Sea-the Strait of Main.

The depth of some sea areas in the Main Strait is also less than 120 meters, which means that the Red Sea will become a closed saltwater lake in the future.

Even if the free world desperately deepens the Mediterranean Sea-Dead Sea-Red Sea Canal, when the Strait of Main becomes land, there will still be no way to pass through the Red Sea.

As for whether Homo sapiens will dig the Main Canal.

The answer is of course yes.

But the Main Canal dug by Homo sapiens is not unnavigable for ships in the free world.

Therefore, the free world has to re-evaluate the strategic value of the Mediterranean-Dead Sea-Red Sea Canal. If you have this spare time, it is better to invest in the expansion of the Eurasian Railway.

Now the free world really needs to upgrade and transform the Eurasian Railway and expand the cargo transportation volume of the Eurasian Railway.

After all, the Arctic route that Lucia had placed high hopes on before is also abolished now, and the Arctic Ocean is freezing longer and longer.

According to the current trend, the Bering Strait can be completely covered by ice sheets. After becoming a semi-permanent ice sheet, the Arctic route will directly lose the possibility of navigation.

In the absence of a solution, the four major forces can only find a way to use railways and roads instead.

But as September passed quietly.

The situation around the world is further clarified.

The Europa Commonwealth and Lucia, which suffered from extreme weather and severely reduced agricultural production, have entered the cold winter ahead of schedule.

Especially in the northern part of Northern Europe, it was covered with ice and snow as early as the end of August. In October, the entire region around the Baltic Sea was covered with heavy snow.

The Arctic ice sheet expands a little bit southward from the northern part of northern Europe, although for a while, many ice sheets will not become semi-permanent, only seasonal ice sheets.

But the problem is that this year's North Atlantic warm current shows no signs of returning to normal. Without the warm water vapor of the North Atlantic warm current, the temperate oceanic climate in Western Europe has become a temperate continental climate, and even some areas with relatively high latitudes have become frigid. climate.

Berlin.

The first blizzard in autumn covered the whole city with a layer of snow.

However, this kind of scenery has a trace of cruelty.

In Berlin, which has quickly entered winter mode, many people have to turn on the heating in advance.

America's half-sold and half-gifted genetically modified corn is made into feed, alcohol, and high-fructose syrup, which are supplied to farmers and agricultural companies.

Coupled with the low-priced natural gas purchased from Lucia, the production costs of many Europa companies have barely been lowered.

There are also cheap light industrial products from Seris that come over the Eurasian Railway, which also alleviates the problem of insufficient supply in the local market.

The Europa Consortium has also reluctantly increased subsidies for some products.

This barely suppressed the spread of the wave of bankruptcy and once again stabilized internal prices.

However, the early cooling of the northern hemisphere still makes Europa and Lucia feel very difficult.

In order to deal with the frequent extreme weather and the problem of global cooling, the major forces have held frequent small meetings recently.

Human beings are still too fragile in the face of the mighty power of nature.

Except for the Homo sapiens company entrenched in the equatorial region, other forces feel the pressure.

Homo sapiens, while taking advantage of this heaven-sent opportunity, vigorously recruits natural persons, and at the same time is rapidly building the equatorial stratosphere railway.

Chapter 543 Completion of the first phase

Due to the distance problem.

The Equatorial Stratospheric Railway across the Pacific Ocean is not in the first phase of construction.

The first phase of construction projects is the Southeast Asian Equatorial Stratospheric Railway, the South American Equatorial Stratospheric Railway, and the African Equatorial Stratospheric Railway.

At present, the Southeast Asian Equatorial Stratospheric Railway in the first phase of the project has been laid.

The South American Equatorial Stratospheric Railway has completed 73%, and the African Equatorial Stratospheric Railway has completed 55%. These two parts are expected to be completed by the end of this year.

The second phase of the Ceylon Ocean Equatorial Stratospheric Railway will be laid next year, the third phase of the Atlantic Equatorial Stratospheric Regulations will be implemented the year after, and the fourth phase of the Pacific Equatorial Stratospheric Railway will be completed in the year after.

After the completion of the fourth phase of the project, the entire equatorial stratosphere railway will be fully connected.

Liu Zhifan at the Southeast Asian headquarters, on behalf of Li Qingye, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of the project.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony was on the north side of Pontianak City in Borneo, which happens to be on the equator.

The ground part of Pontianak Station is a huge building complex covering an area of ​​9 square kilometers, with a building height of 100 meters and a large platform on it.

At this time, Liu Zhifan was on the platform.

"I declare! The Southeast Asia Equatorial Stratospheric Railway is officially put into use today!"

Clap clap!All the construction workers applauded quickly.

Whether it is a reporter from Homo sapiens or other forces, they are all concentrating on taking pictures and videos, or editing press releases with their mobile phones.

Liu Zhifan cut the ribbon with scissors.

On the platform behind him, a container was pulled up by an elevator, and a cable on the other side lowered a container from the stratosphere.

This kind of counterweight elevator is the core means for loading and unloading goods at the station.

The container that is put down will be slightly heavier than the container that went up, so that gravity can be used to pull up the lighter container to achieve the effect of reducing energy consumption.

Of course, the station has an active lifting system and a dedicated passenger line.

Under normal circumstances, the number of lift lines can be appropriately set according to the cargo throughput and passenger transport scale of the local station.

For example, the Pontianak Station in front of us, because it is close to the coastal area, will become a core station in the future, so 20 cargo lift lines and 6 passenger lift lines have been set up.

Liu Zhifan briefly answered some reporters' questions, then took the passenger elevator to the stratosphere platform of Pontianak Station.

At an altitude of [-] meters.

Asuofang, the chief engineer, introduced at the side: "Currently, there are 9 stations on the Southeast Asian Equatorial Stratospheric Railway, with a total length of 5319 kilometers."

Liu Zhifan looked at the cumulonimbus clouds outside the window: "Can the running speed meet expectations? How safe is the elevator?"

"At present, the fastest running speed can reach 2400 kilometers per hour, but considering the station, it can only run at a speed of 1200 kilometers per hour." Asuo Fang paused for a while, and continued to introduce:

"The safety of elevators is mainly due to the frequent rainfall and lightning in the equatorial region, as well as typhoons. Lightning can be avoided through lightning induction devices and Faraday cages; in terms of storms, the main thing is to beware of strong winds above level 10."

After a while, the passenger elevator carried a group of people to the stratosphere platform.

The passenger area is completely sealed. After all, this is the stratosphere at an altitude of [-] meters. Not only is the air thin, the temperature is also very low, and the ultraviolet rays are extremely strong.

Even the body of a new human could be injured in this environment.

Although Liu Zhifan is promoting this project, it is the first time for him to inspect the stratospheric railway on the spot.

I saw the stratospheric railway outside the window. There are a total of 12 railway lines, and each railway line is recessed into the floating platform.

Asuo explained to him: "Minister, this is a superconducting magnetic levitation track."

"Superconducting?"