The Meriga Project - summary maps
Tags: QGISmeriga project21 Sep 2015 - MawKernewek
The blogger and author John Michael Greer wrote the book Star's Reach set centuries after the decline of industrial civilisation in the wake of resource depletion and climate change.
He is now looking for stories for a shared-world anthology set in the same world as Star's Reach, the Meriga Project. In the 25th century, the Greenland ice cap and most of Antarctic ice have melted leaving sea level 50m higher than at present. It is possible to view the effect of this at websites like flood.firetree.net.
I thought it worthwhile however to make my own maps of this world in QGIS. I have used the CleanTopo2 digital elevation model. For reference I mark present day coastlines and borders from the Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Geography Database (NOAA) and the locations of major urban areas >750k inhabitants, from Nordpil (based on data from the UN Population Division).
I have used an Equidistant Conic Projection for the continental scale ones, and Albers Equal Area Projection for the more close-up ones. Most of the maps have a scale of 1:30 million if printed at A4. I link to full-size JPGs of the maps at my own website.
I have not included Antarctica so far, I may do so later if I get hold of a decent bedrock DEM and make some reasonable assumptions about remnant ice sheets at this point.
He is now looking for stories for a shared-world anthology set in the same world as Star's Reach, the Meriga Project. In the 25th century, the Greenland ice cap and most of Antarctic ice have melted leaving sea level 50m higher than at present. It is possible to view the effect of this at websites like flood.firetree.net.
I thought it worthwhile however to make my own maps of this world in QGIS. I have used the CleanTopo2 digital elevation model. For reference I mark present day coastlines and borders from the Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Geography Database (NOAA) and the locations of major urban areas >750k inhabitants, from Nordpil (based on data from the UN Population Division).
I have used an Equidistant Conic Projection for the continental scale ones, and Albers Equal Area Projection for the more close-up ones. Most of the maps have a scale of 1:30 million if printed at A4. I link to full-size JPGs of the maps at my own website.
I have not included Antarctica so far, I may do so later if I get hold of a decent bedrock DEM and make some reasonable assumptions about remnant ice sheets at this point.
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| The northern part of N America, comprising present-day USA, Canada and Greenland. full-size version |
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| The former USA and Central America. full-size version |
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| South America. full-size version |
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| North Africa. The Jordan valley and Dead Sea basin is not in fact flooded, since 50m sea level rise is not enough to make the connection from the Mediterranean. full-size version |
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| Southern Africa. full-size version |
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| Northern Asia. full-size version |
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| SE Asia. full-size version |
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| SW Asia. full-size version |
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| Australasia. Note the sea does not actually flood the Lake Eyre basin in Australia (link). full-size version |
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| Europe. The Jordan valley and Dead Sea basin is not in fact flooded, since 50m sea level rise is not enough to make the connection from the Mediterranean. full-size version |
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| A closer view of eastern Canada and NE USA. This has a different projection which if I remember rightly was Albers Equal Area Conic. full-size version |
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| SW USA. full-size version |
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| SE USA. full-size version |
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| N Europe. full-size version |
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| S Europe. full-size version |
