... all the ice melts?

We all know that our climate is changing. Average temperatures are getting higher, every day around 200 species of plants and animals are becoming extinct and sea levels are rising steadily. But what if we assume that, because of climate change, all the ice melted?

If only the sea ice would melt, it would not mean a lot of changes, as the floating ice already replaces almost the same space in the water. The big problem are the 95 % land-based ice, for example in the Antarctica, as there are mountains as big as the Alps completely covered in ice. If all of that ice melts and floats into the sea, it has multiple serious consequences.

The most obvious outcome is that sea levels will rise. You probably heard recently that already a rise by 1 meter would mean big troubles and huge difficulties all around the world. If all the ice worldwide would melt, our current sea levels would rise by 60 to 70 meters. That is even more dramatic if you consider that half of the world population lives on sea coasts – in huge cities like New York, London, Buenos Aires, Dakar, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore or Mumbai. See, all those cities I just named wouldn’t be there anymore like we know them today, but drowned. Cities like Venice or Amsterdam who are already fighting with sea rise would be gone real quick, so would the thousands of islands in the oceans. This means billions of people have to be replaced, which will not only cause chaos but as well unbelievable high costs.

Another consequence is that the world is getting even warmer, as ice is reflecting sunlight back into our atmosphere – if all ice melted this would not be possible anymore and the sea would absorb all sunlight, with the outcome that temperature would rise even more.

It is also sure that today’s system of currents which are working through the differences between salty and non salty water would be disturbed. These interruptions would make big troubles as well, as those currents are an important factor for our climate, for example the Gulf Stream as the ‘heating of Europe’.

If you consider this, we wouldn’t only have the problem to find new homes for billions of people, but would also need to find new places to cultivate crops. We would have way less landmass, regions where it will be too hot and regions where it will be too cold. It would probably get really crowded.

And what about all the wildlife living on ice? 3.365 species are living in the arctic and all of them would lose their natural habitat. Our great grandchildren will only know polar bears, robs, narwhals or polar wolves from zoos.

We can be lucky that it will take at least around 5000 years until all the ice melts. Hopefully, we find solutions to stop climate change or at least reduce rising temperatures until then.