we just can't stop draining things over here at life's biggest questions hey
listen we got given a few water drainage pumps for Christmas and we're trying to
put them to good use before we re gift them to our unsavory cousins don't worry
by it alright nevertheless draining things is
actually pretty damn fun because for the most part oceans and expansive bodies of
water have a habit of hiding some pretty intriguing mysteries down within the
deep dark bowels of the murky blue and that's the most mysterious of them all
is up there at the frozen north so let's take a look shall we hello Internet
what's going on and once again welcome back to the most inquisitive channel on
YouTube flash because questions as per usual up your disembodied flow voice
Jack Finch as today weaker she asked the question what if we drained the Arctic
Ocean alter
for the curious amongst you that clip was from 2007 30 days of night a
fantastic film that depicts the northernmost town of Barrow Alaska
because paint we're trying to depict an Arctic drained of all water but instead
we'll have to depict an Arctic town drained of all blood hey alaskan
vampires what can I say it's a bad pun but it kind of works the
point is that cinematic landscape of a view may be pretty similar given the
parameters of this hypothetical situations but without further delay why
don't we just dive on into the frigid ice-cold waters our first port of call
which would perhaps be the most appropriate is to outline all of the
many idiosyncrasies of the Arctic Ocean which isn't really an ocean at all but
more of a sea or an estuary really still it's a fascinating place so let's take a
look as to why the Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's
five major oceans although some oceanographers do remain steadfast in
its classification as a sea a partially enclosed coastal body of water with a
free connection to the open sea which has a few technical implications for our
particular hypothetical situation but we'll get to those in good time the
Arctic Ocean is seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing global
ocean and that in itself is why it is so damn important because the first
glaringly obvious point of this last biggest question is that if we drain the
Arctic Ocean we'd all die but hey that doesn't make for any entertaining
hypotheticals does it so let's put the Arctic in a protective little
hypothetical bubble and see how we'd fare if we started draining the ocean
and more importantly what would be revealed besides its surrounding waters
the Arctic Ocean is bordered by both Eurasia and North America for the most
part it is sporadically covered by sea ice which unfortunately for us is
diminishing and in water it is completely comprised of ice the small
area that encapsulates the Arctic Ocean is bordered by Russia Canada the
northernmost tip of Norway Iceland the entirety of Greenland and the
northernmost tip of Alaska so there in effect we have a checklist of where we
would need to dam in order to allow the draining to begin and I mean holy moly
that's one heck of a feat of Engineering it's making me stress already a little
bit put it this way the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular Basin that
covers an area of around five point four to seven million square miles is
coastline is twenty-eight thousand miles long
and you can kind of see where we're going with this one right the big
damn ever built on planet Earth is the Three Gorges Dam that spans the Yangtze
River and covers 1.4 miles it is the largest feat of modern
engineering on planet Earth and it's one point four miles in length one point
four yeah we need a dam that covers 28,000 miles in order to drain the
Arctic Ocean now it is estimated that the Three Gorges Dam cost around a
whopping twenty four billion dollars to construct and at first glance you could
imagine that a dam that size that we needed in this hypothetical scenario
would cost somewhere in the ballpark of twenty-eight thousand times that cost
which is roughly 672 trillion dollars that's over six times the amount of the
entire planet economy so theoretically we'd need six economies to pay for it
all working simultaneously to pump out enough gross world product to pay for
this particularly problematic Arctic dam but hey we could probably shave off a
huge chunk of the cost given the fact that we've just need something big and
tall enough to act as a physical barrier once we start pumping all of that water
away which leads us to our next problematic venture draining the Arctic
Ocean and who thought building the dam was hard because it's only about to get
harder put it this way the Arctic Ocean has a total volume of eighteen point
seven times ten to the power of six kilometres cubed that's 1.9 times 10 to
the power of 15 liters in other terms it's about 1.3 percent of the world's
ocean that's big that's a lot of water also we haven't even spoken about the
fact this Arctic Ocean well it's Arctic the majority of it is comprised of the
Arctic ice pack as the laws of thermodynamics dictate there's gonna be
a few ice cubes left behind if we start draining this whole thing all right so
then how would we even begin to drain the Arctic Ocean and hope to shift that
much water and who knows bottle it up and Sal it is the world's purest and
coldest ice water hey that's capitalism right and no one's
doubting the questionable ethics of this whole half vertical scenario anyway but
that's by the by okay within these hypothetical parameters I'm pretty sure
it's safe to say that getting a series of pumps to shift the Arctic Ocean is
completely out of the question so we're gonna have to rely on the same
magical hypothetical plug hole that worked for us back in our what if we
drained the ocean video all right the flow rate of our magical plug hole is
around forty-three thousand two hundred liters
per day again the volume of the Arctic Ocean is about 1.9 trillion cubic liters
if we divide that by the rate in which the water would flow down the magical
hypothetical plug hole it would take around 227 million years for it to be
fully drained and even then it wouldn't be entirely drained given the fact that
the topography of the Arctic Ocean is all over the shop and there'd be entire
craters worth of small oceans still bobbing about regardless as to where we
began draining so yeah if all of this doesn't sound off-putting enough given
the fact that we'd be going to incomprehensible lengths that would see
Humanity undertaking the largest engineering event in the history of our
planet with a sprinkling of hypothetical magic you might think it's all worth it
and the short answer is no not at all the Arctic Ocean has been frozen for
millennia it's the polar ice cap for crying out loud
although it's considered that the Arctic Ocean used to harbour plant life that
existed there as recently as five and a half thousand years ago with ocean calls
that date back around 8000 years to the last warm period of 125,000 years ago
during the last interglacial period the likelihood of going to such great
lengths of draining the ocean would be ridiculous given the fact that we could
just you know send the submarine down there and see what all the fuss is about
how would the way that things are going it's estimated that the Arctic Ocean may
experience ice-free summers Bight as early as 2040 so we'd probably save more
money by killing off the planet instead of building a giant dam hoping for a
hypothetical plug hole to show up and then waiting 227 million years for the
whole thing to be done and dusted now there's no doubt that a civilization
would serve to learn a lot about ourselves if we had carte blanche on the
many mysteries of the Arctic ice but yeah if with that curious about the
Arctic we should probably just drill it or something yeah that sounds like a
much better idea well there we have it a long and short answer to the question
what if we drained the Arctic Ocean what do you guys think do you agree disagree
have any more to add to this hypothetical horror show there let us
know your thoughts down in the comment section below as well as any choice pics
of your own before we depart from today's video if you'd like to continue
on with your questioning binge please feel free to take a look and neatly
compiled playlists efficiently arranged for your viewing enjoyment many of which
involve draining massive water on that note unfortunately that's
what we've got time for in today's video just stick around all the wait until the
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more flattened voice check Finch you'll be watching a nice biggest questions and
until next time don't drain the Arctic Ocean and take it easy