you've likely heard about the effects
that climate change is having on our
planet and specifically in the arctic
which is warming twice as fast but what
would actually happen if all the ice
melted on earth i can help with that
when you and i drink water
we drink non-salty water we drink fresh
water
now of all the water in the world most
of it is salty just three percent is not
salty now if that three percent
you can't get to most of that because
seventy percent of that three percent
is frozen
30 million cubic kilometers of frozen
water
it's so much frozen water so much ice
that if you had a layer of it a thousand
meters thick it would cover north
america that's a lot of frozen water
people on land frozen water forms
glaciers ice sheets permafrost and snow
but the arctic is largely ocean so there
it takes the form of floating sea ice
like icebergs and because it's in direct
contact with warming waters sea ice will
be the first to melt as global
temperatures rise in fact this year nasa
reported that the extent of arctic sea
ice was the lowest ever recorded for
january february april may and june
2016. so the world is getting warmer and
the ice is melting pretty soon you'll be
able to drive your ship from europe to
russia
right over the north pole with no ice in
the way
that's good for certain shipping
companies maybe
but for the marine species the polar
bears the walruses the seals
they don't have their old habitats
they're all going away they're melting
out from under them and ocean dwelling
animals like bowhead whales and narwhals
aren't immune to these changes either as
sea ice melts energy and oil companies
are taking it as an opportunity to
search further north for untapped
resources using a process known as
seismic blasting they shoot air
explosions into the water in an effort
to map the ocean floor and find oil of
course this has detrimental effects on
the whole ecosystem of the arctic ocean
while also causing physical trauma and
habitat relocation in wales in terms of
sea levels melting sea ice won't have
much of an effect this is because the
floating ice already displaces roughly
the same amount of water as it would
produce when it melts so the net effect
would be negligible furthermore the
majority of earth's ice more than 95
percent is land-based and contained
mostly in enormous ice sheets that cover
greenland and antarctica where there are
entire mountain ranges almost as big as
the alps completely buried in ice so
what if all the ice on land melts if all
this ice melts the ocean is going to
have more water in it so the sea levels
as measured from the coasts is going to
go up it's going to go up 70 meters
that's a long way people half the world
citizens live on sea coasts that's where
the
commerce action is
so they're going to have to move where
are they going to go
and
who's going to pay for it tokyo new york
sao paulo mumbai shanghai and jakarta
are all coastal and happen to be some of
the world's biggest cities even a small
sea level rise of only a couple feet
could cause up to a trillion dollars
worth of flood damage per year a rise of
10 meters would displace more than 630
million people nearly 10 of the world's
population at 25 meters 1.4 billion
people roughly 20 of humanity is left
homeless and to visualize the full 70
meters the rising seas would drown out
most of the u.s eastern seaboard
much of the west coast the entire state
of florida huge areas of asia including
bangladesh and much of northern china
and create a new inland sea in australia
at the north and south pole of the earth
we have a lot of ice ice is white ice
reflects sunlight into space
but there's a feedback mechanism one
thing leading to another as the world
gets warmer
the ice melts
as the ice melts it's reflecting less
sunlight into space which lets the world
get warmer still the sunlight is
absorbed by the dark liquid ocean
so as the ice melts the world gets
warmer and the sea gets fresher
currently the world's oceans are
crisscrossed by a set of currents that
act like a giant conveyor belt and these
currents are powered in part by the
differences in the saltiness between one
part of the ocean and another so if a
melting ice sheet in greenland dumps a
whole bunch of non-salty fresh water
into the north atlantic it's possible
that it could disrupt the currents so
the conveyor belt takes chemicals takes
nutrients around the world which feed
plankton which feed fish which feed us
half of the oxygen you breathe is made
by plants in the ocean so you don't want
to mess with this furthermore
as that sea surface gets warmer off of
greenland the gulf stream will probably
shift a little bit and if that shifts
what keeps europe warm right now may not
keep europe as warm so the crops are
going to have to be grown elsewhere and
who's going to grow them and who's going
to ship them around and who's going to
feed each other and what's going on this
is serious business when you go melting
the ice we actually went up to the
arctic to see the current state of
things first hand while documenting it
all and we're absolutely shocked by what
we found click here to watch our
documentary at the end of the arctic
where we learn about an inuit
community's fight to defend their human
rights against oil companies and the
canadian government all while trying to
save the arctic from the drastic effects
of climate change and seismic blasting
you can help spread awareness by sharing
the video and signing our petition to
put pressure on the government to
prevent seismic blasting in the arctic
which would have detrimental
long-lasting effects on the wildlife and
the inuit people living in northern
canada check out the links in the
description and join the movement to
stand up for the arctic and our planet
and subscribe for more weekly science
videos