If all of Earth’s land ice were to melt, it would be disastrous, experts warn. This would dramatically reshape the continents and submerge many of the world’s great cities.
A video by Business Insider Science shows exactly what our coasts would look like if all the land ice melted.
A lot of European cities, like Brussels and Venice, would be practically under water. Millions of people in Asia, from cities like Mumbai, Beijing and Tokyo, would be uprooted and would have to move inside the continent.
According to upworthy, South America would say goodbye to cities like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. And in the US, we’d see places like Houston, San Francisco and New York – not to mention the entire state of Florida – slowly disappear into the sea.
Business Insider based these images on National Geographic’s estimate that sea levels will rise 216 feet (!) if all the land’s ice melts into our oceans. Many of America’s most populous regions would be severely affected by sea level rise, as you’ll see by exploring the map.
Specialists point out that as we continue “burning fossil fuels for energy and emitting carbon into the atmosphere, the planet is getting warmer. And that means melted ice”.
A study published in September 2023 by researchers from the US, UK and Germany showed that if we don’t change our behaviour, “we have enough fossil fuel resources available to completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet”.
Basically, the self-inflicted disaster you see above is definitely in the realm of the possible.
“This wouldn’t happen overnight, but what’s amazing is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it, and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years. And we want to prevent that from happening. We need to keep coal, gas and oil in the ground”said the study’s lead author, Ricarda Winkelmann, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
