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Drought causes 154-ship traffic jam at the Panama Canal(jalopnik.com)

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Doug Holland@lemmy.world
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mister_monster@monero.town
4 points

How does that work? The canal pumps water from the ocean right? Why would the canal need rain to keep the water levels up?

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Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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The article sorta hints at it, and my half-ass guess is that it was more practical to dig the Canal to a certain depth and pump more water in to make it ‘deeper’, than dig to depths adequate for huge ships they perhaps wouldn’t have envisioned in 1904.

Assuming each lock is effectively watertight, that’s fairly clever engineering, but it assumes a perpetual supply of water.

Disclaimer: I’m a high school dropout, so wutdefuquedoIknow?

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gondezee@lemmy.world
12 points

Fresh water lakes flow down into the locks, feeding them and also provide waterways for the ships to traverse across the isthmus. The canal artificially connects various lakes in addition to the locks which are used to move the ships up or down.

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