Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Thousands of miles of buried fiber optic cable in densely populated coastal regions of the United States may soon be inundated by rising seas, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Oregon.
The study, presented July 16, 2018 at a meeting of internet network researchers, portrays critical communications infrastructure that could be submerged by rising seas in as soon as 15 years, according to the study's senior author, Paul Barford, a UW-Madison professor of computer science.
"Most of the damage that's going to be done in the next 100 years will be done sooner than later," says Barford, an authority on the "physical internet" -- the buried fiber optic cables, data centers, traffic exchanges and termination points that are the nerve centers, arteries and hubs of the vast global information network. "That surprised us. The expectation was that we'd have 50 years to plan for it. We don't have 50 years."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:09AM (2 children)
But Trump said there is no such thing as climate change, just weather. So how can this be true?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:27AM
His weight at Mar-a-Lago pushes Florida down, making the ocean rise in comparison.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Coward, Anonymous on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:36PM
If Dems laid off the climate change rhetoric, maybe Trump wouldn't have won.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:43AM (3 children)
What a crock of bullshit. If sea levels actually rise enough to impact the Internet infrastructure the efforts to fix that problem will be a rounding error in the rest of the shitstorm that will hit. This article is just more FUD, this time targeted to geeky net types to try to get them all spun up to "do something". Bah. This is how FakeNews works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:57AM
then I must be doing something wrong, and require more lotion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @07:47AM (1 child)
Notice the weasel words of may and could be?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @07:49AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:03AM (4 children)
The oceans are expected to rise by a meter, or about a yard, or three feet, within some number of years. Worst case scenario, two meters, or six feet, by 2100. So, uhhhhhhmmmmm - fiber is being laid near the beaches, at levels at or within 3 feet of the waterline? Isn't that on the wrong end of the absurdity scale?
Not only do the companies laying that line not believe in the seas rising - they aren't even taking precautions against hurricanes, storm surges, or routine flooding in the rivers that feed into inlets, bays, or whatever.
Everyone realizes that fiber can be put on phone poles, right? And, probably hung up there cheaper than they can be buried.
Sorry, this whole thing looks pretty stupid. Do the cable companies bury all of their cable, in these locations? Or, do they string them up on poles?
The irony here is, in MOST of the US, it makes perfect sense to bury lines - but the electric companies refuse to do so. But, on the coasts, where it might make more sense to hang lines, the fiber companies are burying them.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:40AM
Undersea cables
Come up on to shore
Look ugly, get in the way, so get buried a few feet down.
Somewhere inland (cost of land vs cost of running cable TO that land) a terminal is built, to connect the country to the cable
Most are, unsurprisingly, relatively close to the coast.
Some are quite close to high tide (note, Fukashima was fine, had they not put the pumps below the maximum water line)
So.. Put it on a mountain, but be prepared to pay LOTS to get the cables all the way up there.
Risk v cost all over again - safer futher up, further inland, but costs a lot more, up front, to put it there.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:43AM (2 children)
In the context of a story titled:
Just imagine: if only they can bury the poles entirely, the fibre can be both on phone poles and buried in the same time.
Would this be just wonderfully straight now for you?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 21 2018, @09:33AM (1 child)
Your post wasn't very smart - but I gave you a "funny". Yeah, let's bury the poles along with the fibre - it makes perfect sense!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 21 2018, @02:11PM
Unless you're Polish.
*rim-shot*
Yeah, sorry. Sorry.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday July 21 2018, @09:49AM (1 child)
Yet another panic-filled article that ignores any, you know, actual data. First, sea level has been rising for a long time, and it forecast to continue rising. Depending on which data set you like, you'll see global average sea level rising somewhere around 2mm per year. Local variations due to subsidence, plate tectonics, or other factors tend to dominate. Here is an NOAA article with an interactive graph. [climate.gov] Note that the graph shows a nearly linear trend. Interestingly, the graph fails to support the assertion in the text that sea level rise since 1993 has accelerated. Over the entire time period from 1880 to 2018, the average rate has been 1.61mm/year.
The point is: sea level increase is not news, and anyway is completely negligible compared to tides, storm surges and other daily variations.
According to Corning, which is one of the larger manufacturers for fiber optic cables, "Operators installing optical cable typically presume a service life of 25 years." So: 1.6mm times 25 years = 4cm. Heck, let's go with the alarmists and double that to 8cm. Someone please tell me which company is installing anything where 8cm is going to make a difference - I want to short their stock.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:01AM
Purely by coincidence, I came across another article criticizing this paper [wattsupwiththat.com]. They actually read it (and have a link). Turns out that the paper assumes a sea level rise of 1 foot / 15 years, which comes to 20mm/year. So about 10 times the actual rate...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1) by GreatOutdoors on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:37PM
"That surprised us. The expectation was that we'd have 50 years to plan for it. We don't have 50 years."
They actually said this 50 years ago.. but since no one listens to their elders anymore, the information was not passed down. Before you bash me and say "but that infrastructure didn't exist 50 years ago", just know that water has always been in motion, and geology has been going on for millions of years. Their failure to plan for wet situations is not something we should panic about. I argue that they are responsible for cheaping out on their infrastructure builds to save money now and want the general public to pay to fix it later.
Yes, I did make a logical argument there. You should post a logical response.