• joshthewaster@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    First, let me say that Trump is an idiot and I’m not defending him.

    That out of the way… Imagine your circle landmass has a ‘C’ shaped mountain range around the edge. The center of the ‘C’ is a sea level valley that floods when sea levels rise. Then the amount of coast would increase.

    Obviously if sea level keeps rising forever then eventually the total coastline will trend to zero. Really just pointing out that the circle may be a bit of an oversimplification and in some given time frame coastline could increase.

    None of the this is intended to defend Trump or deny the negative affects of climate change.

    • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Except our landmass is not a small amount of water surrounded by land. It’s a small amount of land surrounded by water.

      • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I think you’re misunderstanding. They are saying that accounting for topography different areas will becomes islands and peninsulas so total landmass might decrease but total coastline could actually increase. Your simplified model only makes sense with a landmass that constantly rises in elevation towards its center point.

        Stupid statement by Trump regardless though.

        • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Ooh, I didn’t consider that. Good point. Still, without performing the actual calculations it’s quite possible it could reduce. There will be a certain amount of loss from reduced total landmass that would need to be compensated for and overcome by any increases. Reductions will be very, very common after all. Many islands simply disappear, most of Florida, etc.

          • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Exactly landmass and coastline will trend towards 0 with enough sea rise.

            And looking at a topography map of the US specifically the amount of coastline that could possibly be gained (if any) would not be worth the trade-off of losing pretty much all of SE US. Trump is definitely an idiot.