'fill In' The English Channel?

[Mesoscale]

I know its a stupid question and its not meant to be taken seriously but seeing as france does get some great weather (storms warmth etc) would we benefit from it? with a large enough canal for heavy shipping.

I made a photoshop of two scenarios!!!

Scenario 1:

Scenario 2:

Granted that people would dislike some of our coast being taken up but it would benifit everyone.

[Styx]

It would probably sort out traffic gridlock in the south east, a whole new network of highway diversions.

[Gray-Wolf]

They'd still build on the flood plains of the extended Thames.........

[4wd]

The North Sea is relatively shallow, could be filled in too so when the easterlies arrive there will be no moderating influence.

No lake effect snow showers though, just flurries in the wind.

No more North Sea haar to spoil endless day in th espring.

It would be sunny and 25C instead of 7C

[BornFromTheVoid]

Create a pump from the North Sea out into space, and maybe the we could re-create the land as it was 25,000 years ago.

Aside from the weather change, it would certainly making drilling in the North Sea much easier...

[4wd]

It probably would be technically possible to create the world's biggest Polder, however the pumping required to remove the water from the Rhine, Thames and inumerable other rivers into the Baltic would be problematic...

[Evening thunder]

Haha, could you extend the 'filled in' zone west a bit please then we could get high temps with southerly winds here, and more T-storms! (and more winter snow, etc)

If it was real though I could not agree to such a man-made altering of the natural landscape, and the coast around here can be beautiful, but I can dream of a natural solution for that happening! I've thought in the past that if sea levels were as they were in the ice age it would be better for more temp/weather extremes here.

[Essan]

Well the last time the Channel and southern North Sea were 'filled in' we had no shortage of snow and ice. But I recall summers were even colder that they are now!

[Methuselah]

They'd still build on the flood plains of the extended Thames.........

Well if Boris ever gets to see his idiotic notion of a Thames-Estuary airport come to fruition, we'll be half way there...

[Coast]

Then that would mean no coast??????? (shut up you lot at the back there!!!!! )

[cheeky_monkey]

Granted that people would dislike some of our coast being taken up but it would benifit everyone.

how exactly would it benefit everyone?

[Richard2901]

Filling in the North Sea sounds like the best idea I have ever heard

Just wish it were possible as that horrid grey sea is responsible for all of our worst weather. Philip Eden has commented that, without the North Sea, Aberdeen would rank among the driest cities in Europe.

It still wouldn't be amongst the sunniest but I reckon we could see around 1800-2000 hours sun annually - similar to Denmark and southern Sweden - compared to only 1400-1500 hours at present.

Only downside would be losing the coastline and the 15 miles of unspoilt beach and dunes we have to the north.

[Mesoscale]

There are two main shipping lanes east/west which currently is roughly 10 miles wide with the filling in of the channel you could have a man made 5 mile wide canal there would be minimal ferries as there would be a few heavily monitered bridges over to the continent meaning border control would be easier with a narrow waterway with lots of traffic that means it would be hard for any illegal imigrants to cross without being spotted or being run over. policing of the waterway would become easier as its less of an area to search. the north sea has minimal traffic anyway. more land to build on, we would still have clear borders because there would be no connecting land still meaning no fighting over land maybe just the positioning of the canals. Better weather when we get the southerlys and easterlies, summer would be warmer and the winter would be colder (good for both heat and cold lovers so no fighting). it would also benefit Belgium and the Netherlands for weather as Amsterdam has a similar climate at the moment to a few of Englands Cities. getting to europe would be cheaper as you could pass into france/belgium/netherlands/denmark without having to use a payed service like flying, ferries or the eurostar. who knows what else it would do for us.

[samadamsuk]

Cant we do that then let if flood in and boil it ? We'd never get out the house with football sized hail coming down ..

Sam

[ZONE 51]

Nice photoshoped maps, interesting idea this to.

Heres my go at a map, ive joined up both sides of the channel but allowed a canal path for transport.

If this map were real then i think it would increase convergence thunderstorms, this is all you would need to influence the storms i would imagine, especially is low pressure was sat out to the southwest, i don't think we would miss those storms!

[knocker]

Geat. Would make Famouth a significant port again. It does have one of the best natural harbours in the world.

[Guest QuantumSnow]

Far too close for comfort as far as i'm concerned.

[J10]

Where would you draw the line between England and France.

I am taking this proposal far to seriously.

[Essan]

Stephen Baxter wrote a series of 3 books in an 'alternative history' in which our ancestors living on Dogger Bank at the end of the last ice age built a wall to keep the rising waters out and thereafter Britain was permanently joined to Europe ...... But I've not read them, so I don't know whether his 'Northland' experiences lots of spectacular multicellar storms or not

[frogesque]

At present coastal erosion is making the English Chanel wider - there are some who think this is a 'good thing'.

[Guest]

This is something I have often wondered about - not only would there be improvements in the climate but there would be a load of extra land to enable us to spread the population out a bit more and to give us more of chance in growing more of our own food.

We could start by dropping waste materials on the Dogger Bank and build this up to above sea level then gradually extend it through time.

One of my biggest disappointments is that we swapped Heligoland for some obscure African Colony with the Germans back in 1890 - it would be great if we still had it as our own patch of real estate just off the German coast.

If you make a start now, I'll pop round in my next life to see what progress you have made in a 100 or so years time

[Methuselah]

We could always build a land-bridge between Scotland and Norway (?) as well, creating an landlocked body of water. Which would, being landlocked, be far more sensitive to the seasons?