What will happen to the planet if all the ice melts on it
If humanity continues to burn fossil fuels and emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then global warming will eventually melt all the ice at the poles and mountain peaks. Now there are more than 5 million cubic miles of ice on the planet — according to scientists, it will take more than 5,000 years to melt all these reserves. The average temperature, which is now 14 degrees Celsius, will reach 26.6 degrees, and the sea level will rise by 65 meters.
These maps show what the world will be like if all the ice on Earth melts and becomes part of the world's oceans. The current coastline is marked by a thin white line.
The entire Atlantic coast will disappear, along with Florida and the Gulf Coast. The hills of San Francisco will turn into a cluster of islands, and the Central Valley will become a huge bay. The Gulf of California will continue to the north and will absorb San Diego.
The Amazon basin in the north and the Paraguay River basin in the south will become bays in the Atlantic Ocean, Buenos Aires, coastal Uruguay and most of Paraguay will disappear. There will remain mountainous areas along the Caribbean coast and in Central America.
Compared to other continents, Africa will lose less land, but warming may make most of it uninhabitable. Egypt, Alexandria and Cairo will be flooded by the overflowing Mediterranean Sea.
Only memories will remain of London, Venice will be flooded by the Adriatic Sea. In thousands of years, according to this scenario, the Netherlands will have been resting under water for many years, and most of Denmark will also disappear. The overflowing waters of the Mediterranean Sea will join the Black and Caspian seas.
The land on which 600 million Chinese now live will be flooded, as will the 160 million-strong Bangladesh and most of the coastal regions of India. The spill of the Mekong Delta will lead to the fact that the Cardamom Mountains in Cambodia will become an island.
An inland sea will appear on the continent, which is now mostly deserted, but most of the narrow coastal strip will be flooded, and four out of five Australians now live in this territory.
The ice sheet of East Antarctica is so large that it contains four-fifths of all the ice on the planet. It has survived earlier periods of warming and may seem unsinkable. Recently, it seems to be compacting a little — due to global warming. The warm atmosphere contains more water vapor, which falls as snow in East Antarctica. But even this giant is unlikely to survive a return to the Eocene climate.
Like the Greenland ice Sheet, the West Antarctica shield was much smaller in previous warm periods. It is vulnerable because most of it is located on solid rocks below sea level. The warming ocean melts the ice sheet from below, causing it to collapse. Since 1992, an average of 65 million tons of ice has been decreasing per year.
Keywords: Nature | Ecology | Ocean | Glacier | Warming | Ice | Continent