The National Geographic project "If All the Ice Melts" offers a look at the map of the world that forms after all the glaciers melt: the level of the world ocean will rise by 65 meters and create a new relief of the continents. According to scientists, if humanity continues to actively pollute the atmosphere, it will happen in 5 thousand years.
It is interesting to always imagine very unlikely, but in principle real things. What would happen if all the ice on Earth, which is more than 20 million cubic kilometers, melted?
National Geographic has created a series of interactive maps that show how catastrophic the consequences would be on our planet. Melted ice that would enter the oceans and seas would raise sea levels by 65 meters. This would swallow cities and countries, altering the overall appearance of continents and coastlines, wiping out entire populations from the face of the earth.
Scientists believe it will take about 5,000 years for temperatures to rise enough to melt all the ice on Earth. However, a start has already been made.
Over the past century, the temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.5 degrees Celsius, and this has led to a 17 cm rise in sea level.
If we continue to burn our reserves of coal, oil and gas, adding five trillion coal to the atmosphere, the average temperature on our planet will reach 26.6 degrees Celsius instead of the current 14.4 degrees Celsius.
So let's see what happens to the continents …
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In Europe, cities like London and Venice will be underwater. The Netherlands and most of Denmark will also flood. The Mediterranean Sea will expand and increase the size of the Black and Caspian Seas.
In Asia, China and Bangladesh will be flooded and more than 760 million people will be under water. Destroyed cities include Karachi, Baghdad, Dubai, Calcutta, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Beijing. India's coastline will also shrink significantly.
In North America, the entire US Atlantic coastline will disappear, along with Florida and the Gulf Coast. In California, the San Francisco Hills will become islands, and the California Valley will become a huge bay.
In South America, the Amazonian Lowlands and the Paraguay River Basin will become straits of the Atlantic Ocean, obliterating Buenos Aires, coastal Uruguay and parts of Paraguay.
Compared to other continents, Africa will lose less land due to rising sea levels. However, an increase in temperature will lead to the fact that most of it will become uninhabited. In Egypt, Alexandria and Cairo will be flooded by the Mediterranean Sea.
Australia will have a continental sea, but it will lose most of the narrow coastal strip where 4 out of 5 Australians live.
In Antarctica, what was once mainland ice will no longer be ice or mainland. This will happen because there is a continental relief under the ice, which is below sea level.
What does Antarctica look like without ice?
Antarctica is the largest ice sheet in the world, but what's underneath?
Scientists from NASA have shown the surface of Antarctica, which is hidden under a thick layer of ice for more than 30 million years. In a project called BedMap2, the researchers calculated the total ice volume in Antarctica to predict future sea level rise. To do this, they needed to know the underlying topography, including wide valleys and hidden mountain ranges.
Some of the most impressive discoveries in Antarctica were the deepest point on all continents, the valley under the Bird Glacier, which is 2780 meters below sea level. Scientists also received the first detailed pictures of the Gamburtsev Mountains, which are located under a 1.6-kilometer layer of ice.
The new map is based on elevation level, ice thickness and basement topography, all of which were taken from ground, aerial and satellite imagery. Scientists also used radars, sound waves and electromagnetic instruments to map.
Warming oceans are already melting the West Antarctic ice sheet, and since 1992, the ice sheet has been stripped of about 65 million tons of ice each year.