Global warming is gradually warming up the atmosphere of our planet, which is why glaciers all over the world are melting gradually and inevitably. But what if they all completely turn into liquid water in just one night?
As you know, 99% of all freshwater ice on Earth is located in the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica, which gradually thaw from year to year. It usually takes hundreds, if not thousands of years to completely melt a glacier. But what happens if some cataclysm melts all this colossal mass of frozen water in just a day?
In fact, nothing good. The water level will rise sharply by as much as 66 meters. Coastal cities (for example, New York, Shanghai or London) will simply drown, and 40% of the world's urban population will at least lose their homes, because most cities are located near large bodies of water.
While the surface will shudder in chaotic convulsions, real hell will also be created underground. Huge streams of salty ocean water will rush into groundwater bodies in the interior of the continent, flooding freshwater reservoirs. Drinking water sources, irrigation systems, cooling systems will all be destroyed.
Once in the ocean, a huge amount of fresh water from the melted ice will disrupt the course of currents and cause weather anomalies. Take the Gulf Stream, for example. It is a strong ocean current that brings warm air to northern Europe and depends on the dense salt water of the Arctic. When fresh water dilutes this salt, the Gulf Stream can simply … disappear.
Result? A sharp cold snap in Europe, which will lead to a local ice age. But this is not the worst (in the past, Europe has gone through this more than once) - remember the remaining 1% of freshwater ice, which is concentrated not in Greenland or Antarctica, but on the rest of the land. So, for example, the Himalayan glaciers will melt. Nonsense, you say, especially against the backdrop of the rest of the apocalypse? But no. Thanks to vigorous human activity, an impressive amount of toxic substances has accumulated in them, for example, the famous DDT - dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. Scientists have found that they accumulate in glaciers for decades, and in case of melting, they instantly pollute all surrounding water bodies.
What else will melt? Arctic tundra ice, the same "permafrost". In addition to the huge amount of organic matter, it contains 54.5 million liters of mercury! This is about the same as you can scrape up on the rest of the planet. In addition, defrosted organic matter will quickly begin to rot, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. This will lead to a warming of the atmosphere, which means that soon the mini-ice ages will be followed by massive droughts. The desert, into which most of the Earth will turn, will periodically be flooded and shaken by hurricanes - after all, a large amount of evaporated water will appear in the heated atmosphere.
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One thing calms down - glaciers will not melt overnight, even after the most terrible disasters. But, unfortunately, the ice is still melting because the planet is gradually warming up. And if we do not take action, then we can pay for it in the coming decades.
Vasily Makarov