# The Sunken City In 'Waterworld' \[spoilers for 20-year-old movie\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 18, 2015, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926 "2015-11-18T23:45:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/41 "2015-11-21T01:06:18Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > I also seem to recall a young Jeanne Tripplehorn in a skin-tight… something. Well, there was the bit where she was just in her, well, skin. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/42 "2015-11-21T02:25:37Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > Well, there was the bit where she was just in her, well, skin. And at the time, such tight skin it was. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/43 "2015-11-21T03:33:14Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Of course there would still be rain, where do you think rain comes from? Rain stars when water condenses on dust or other small particles. Without any land to add particulates to the air, perhaps there never will be rain. With the entire earth nothing but water, there probably won’t be any temperatures differences for water vapor to rise. Perhaps after a time, the atmosphere will stabilize into something like 99% humidity, with some constant temperature over the entire surface, both night and day. Without temperature differences, there probably won’t be much wind after a while, except for effects caused by the rotation of the earth. That’s what I think. I don’t know if I’m correct… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/44 "2015-11-21T09:46:49Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Rain stars when water condenses on dust or other small particles. Without any land to add particulates to the air, perhaps there never will be rain. Ocean spray-derived salt particulates and sulphate aerosols derived from planktonic dimethyl sulphide via gas-to-particle conversion are big sources of cloud condensation nuclei. > [@](#): > > Without temperature differences, there probably won’t be much wind after a while, except for effects caused by the rotation of the earth. Are you under the impression that the middle of the oceans has no wind? There’s always temperature differences - not least because of variant insolation. This leads to [large-scale circulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell). ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/45 "2015-11-21T15:25:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ocean spray-derived salt particulates and sulphate aerosols derived from planktonic dimethyl sulphide via gas-to-particle conversion are big sources of cloud condensation nuclei. > > Are you under the impression that the middle of the oceans has no wind? There’s always temperature differences - not least because of variant insolation. This leads to [large-scale circulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell). Of course I think the oceans have wind! I’ve heard of sailboats, you know. I’m just speculating - with 100% water coverage, and no polar ice caps, the temperatures might stabilize, and the planet might end up like Venus with 100% cloud cover. The circulating currents would move water vapor around but they might not make rain. There’d probably be dew in the morning, but it would form on the ocean surface. You might get this static situation where the atmosphere becomes saturated and stop. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/46 "2015-11-21T19:16:18Z")
Tides, at least, would be simple. Even if you did have some way of measuring them, they’d be very, very small. They’re only large enough to notice because of sloshing up against landmasses. Global weather patterns, I have no clue. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/47 "2015-11-21T22:11:02Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I’m just speculating - with 100% water coverage, and no polar ice caps, the temperatures might stabilize, and the planet might end up like Venus with 100% cloud cover. The circulating currents would move water vapor around but they might not make rain. There’d probably be dew in the morning, but it would form on the ocean surface. You might get this static situation where the atmosphere becomes saturated and stop. Based on what I know of meteorology, I wouldn’t expect any of these effects to occur. The basic [Hadley cell circulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell) would still occur in the absence of land. There is no reason to think that rain would cease. Could you explain the mechanism by which you think dew would be able to condense on the surface of water? ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926/48 "2015-11-21T23:09:19Z")
The basic idea (flood covering the earth) was explored in sightly more detail with Stephen Baxter’s books [**Flood**](http://www.amazon.com/Flood-Stephen-Baxter/dp/0451463285) and [**Ark**](http://www.amazon.com/Ark-Stephen-Baxter/dp/0451463595), where water trapped in the mantle started spewing out from the mid-Atlantic Ridge and, over the next 100 years or so, all land on earth was overtaken by the rising seas. I found it quite disturbing. But even MORE disturbing was the fact that he didn’t include world maps for each part ( **Flood** was divided into parts where he gave the time period, i.e. 2040-2050, and the sea level rise, i.e. “500 meters above present sea level”.) I had to write a Java application to do that myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sunken-city-in-waterworld-spoilers-for-20-year-old-movie/737926.md?page=2)