15 thousand years ago, ice covered most of the Northern Hemisphere.
These days we are heavily into a glacial recede, but does this mean one day all of the ice
will be gone?
Hello and welcome back to life’s Biggest questions – I am Rebecca Felgate and today
we’re asking How Will The Earth Look When All the Ice melts?
To some extent, ice ages and warmer periods are natural on planet earth.
The last ice age, the Pleistocene glaciation, began 1.5 million years ago and began melting
in 12 thousand BCE.
However, the world to our knowledge, has never been in a situation where it has had no ice
whatsoever.
In fact, it is possible that our planet is currently among the warmest it has ever been.
Scientists have predicted that, if we keep producing carbon emissions in the way that
we do now, all of the world’s ice can and will melt - it just may take a thousand or
so years.
When it does happen, ocean levels will rise by 260ft...
So, skipping ahead, if all the ice in the world did melt and we had those few hundred
extra feet of water world-wide, a lot of very populated places would be underwater.
Starting from east to west, here are some densely populated areas and cities that would
be lost to the ocean: large parts of New Zealand, including the city of Auckland, Asian cities
of Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Shanghai, Dhaka, Mumbai, Doha, Baghdad and Bangladesh.
Australia would have a brand new great lake through the middle of the country.
Instanbul would be waterlogged, as would St Petersburg and Heksinki.
Say goodbye to large parts of northern Italy, including Venice, and goodbye to much of Western
France.
Great European cities Brussels, Amsterdam and London would be lost too, with the United
Kingdom becoming much thinner, with the entire county of East Anglia lost to the waves.
Scandinavian cities Stockholm and Copenhagen would be long gone, too.
North America would suffer hugely.
While much land that had previously been frozen may be habitable, many great cities and some
whole states, would be flooded.
With the Saint Lawrence River swelling, Montreal would flood, as would New York City, with
Philadelphia becoming a seaside location.
Charleston would be long gone, was would pretty much the whole state of Florida…goodbye
Miami, goodbye Tampa, goodbye Disney world.
New Orleans would be underwater too, as would Huston Texas.
Cuba would flood, central America would suffer, including Mexico, who would lose Cancun.
Hawaii would also face extinction.
South America would see a lot of flooding to the east, with swathes of ocean infiltrating
the north east corner, washing through Brazil.
Rio would be in jeopardy, but Buenos Aires would be totally gone.
Forget the lost cities for a moment, life is about to get pretty hot.
Obviously the earth will have to have warmed for all the ice to melt, but the ice actually
helps to keep the earth cool in another way.
The white ice reflects sunlight back into space.
Without this ice, more heat will be absorbed into the earth, making climates even warmer,
too.
On top of that, with all the fresh water melting into the salty oceans, the PH balance of the
ocean may change slightly too, which can effect currents.
If and when all the ice melts, it wont just be catastrophic for humans; we would lose
penguins, puffin, reindeer, polar bears, arctic geese, white foxes, walruses, arctic wolf,
seals, moose, narwhal’s, beluga whales and more, not to mention ocean plantlife, which
helps purify the air we breathe.
For us humans, as the population rises and the landmass decreases, we could be in for
some real trouble.
At the moment, it is estimated 10 per cent of the earth’s population is at immediate
risk of displacement with the rise in sea levels, but if ALL the ice melted this could
be much worse, as 40% of the earth’s population lives within 100 kilometres of the coast.
Many millions if not billions of people will need to relocate, at huge economic expense…
and overpopulation in some areas could lead to further issues like disease and poverty.
Speaking of disease, we are not totally sure what is buried under all that ice, but we
do know that there are some trapped and dormant ancient diseases that we do not have immunities
or cures to at the moment.
If the ice melts and these are unleashed, it could mean a Pandora ’s Box of disasters!
So….. life isn’t looking so peachy without the ice.
It is predicted the ice will irreparably melt when the earth’s atmosphere reaches co2
levels of 500 to 800 parts per million.
The current level of c02 is 409, with a rise of around 3 a year.
This means it could take over a hundred, perhaps even a thousand years for ALL of the ice to
melt, so if we don’t plan on changing our harmful human behaviour, we had better make
a pretty serious contingency plan for life without swathes of landmass and species we
currently have.
There you have it, that is one big question answered for you.
What would you like answered next?
Let me know in the comments section below.
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Thanks for joining me here on Life’s Biggest Questions, I am Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch
you in the next video…but for now, stay curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.
If you enjoyed this video, here are two more videos I think you will like.
Check out our video onw hat would happen if the earth lost Oxygen for one minute and our
video asking what would happen if the world was turned upside down!