Astrum Space - What If All the Ice on Earth Melted? | Astrum Earth

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

What would happen if all the ice on Earth suddenly melted?In this video, we’re exploring the hypothetical scenario: what would happen if all of Earth’s ice melted? We look at a world with no polar ice caps, disrupted ocean currents, and continents dramatically redesigned by encroaching coastlines. Is this a total disaster? Could it really happen? And who survives?▀▀▀▀▀▀Want to restore the planet’s ecosystems and see your impact in monthly videos? The first 100 people to join Planet Wild with my code ASTRUM11 will get the first month for free at: https://planetwild.com/r/astrumearth/... If you want to get to know them better first, check out their project using chainsaw detectors to protect old-growth forests: https://planetwild.com/r/astrumearth/... ▀▀▀▀▀▀Astrum's newsletter has launched! Want to know what's happening in space? Sign up here: ⁠https://astrumspace.kit.com⁠A huge thanks to our Patreons who help make these videos possible. Sign-up here: ⁠https://bit.ly/4aiJZNF

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I'm James Stewart and you're watching Astrom Earth. Join me in this video as we journey through a world without ice. What would happen to our planet? Which places would be most affected? And would anyone actually benefit from this worst of worst-case scenarios? Whilst this would mean misery for billions, there are always some that seek to benefit. But firstly, let's deal with the giant frozen elephant in the room. Why are we even talking about this?

Historically, an ice-free world isn't as unusual as it sounds. We've been there before. For the past 12,000 years, we've been in an interglacial period. Yeah, that means technically we are still in an ice age, which, given our rising temperatures and record-breaking summers, can be easy to forget. And it makes sense. Compared to previous ice ages,

the average temperatures are higher and ice sheets smaller. But in the interglacial period before this one, Around 130,000 years ago, things were even warmer than they are today. Temperatures were 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and sea levels stood 6.6 to 9 metres higher than they are right now, mainly due to melt from the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. But it's when we go even further back that things get really interesting. Today, Antarctica is Earth's biggest ice sheet.

But if you were to stand on it 100 million years ago, there wouldn't be a snowflake in sight. Instead, you'd be in a dense subtropical forest, much like those now found on New Zealand's North Island. Sea levels at this time peaked at around 200 metres, the highest they've been in the last 540 million years. All over this ancient continent, plants thrived under the quite bizarre conditions of 20,000. four hours sun in the summer, followed by six months of darkness in the winter. Antarctica was alive with more than just vegetation, too. Fossil records show that dinosaurs roam the lands. It was home to a four-meter-long armored ankyosaurus, gigantic, long-necked soropods, and many more. This period, 100 to 66 million years ago, when the land dinosaurs all died out,

is the last time we are certain the Earth was entirely ice-free. Clearly, today, things are very different. The once green terrain of Antarctica is now covered by an ice sheet larger than the area of the USA and Mexico combined, measuring an incredible 4.9 kilometres at its thickest point, and holding around 60% of the Earth's total freshwater. Greenland ships in another 8 to 10% and the rest is made up of mountain glaciers, small caps

and finally the cryosphere, all the other frozen parts of the planet, sea ice, snow cover and the vast areas of frozen ground called permafrost. So let's get into what happens if all of that vanishes. Perhaps the first thing that springs to mind is the rise in global sea levels and just how big an impact that would have.

At the time of the last dinosaurs, sea levels were staggering 66 metres above what they are today, making them almost shoulder height with the Statue of Liberty. And if all the ice melted today, the same would happen again. The majority of that water, of course, comes from Antarctica, which alone would cause a 58-meter sea level rise globally if it melts. When you add in all the other ice on earth, sea level rise gets to around 71 metres, and the world map gets a brutal redesign. Nearly every single coastline would be plunged beneath the waves, wiping out major cities everywhere. On the west coasts of the United States, Los Angeles would be underwater, and San Francisco would become its own island.

The east coasts wouldn't fare much better either. the entire states of Florida, New York and even Washington, D.C., would vanish. In Europe, we'd lose the entirety of the Netherlands, all of Denmark and nearly half of Belgium. The UK, where I currently live, would become an archipelago, and the city I call home, London, would be no more. And further east, the Black and Caspian Seas would connect for the first time in five and a half million years, freeing up Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan to be landlocked no more. Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo would face new watery landscapes and would lose the entire country of Bangladesh, 173 million people displaced in an instant.

Only Africa would escape relatively unscathed in comparison, although Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt would become casualties, as would parts of Maritania on the West Coast. But sea level rise is only the beginning of the havoc ice melt would weak, because arguably something much worse would also happen. The idea of billions of people losing their homes, infrastructure, livelihoods, and potentially even their lives is simply horrifying. It makes the film the day after tomorrow feel quite tame by comparison. Whilst that's how melting ice ice ice,

would affect us, the planet itself would undergo something even more dramatic. The movement of Earth would be altered. Normally as land ice melts, the mass of the water is moved from the poles to the ocean, where it spread around the globe, essentially taking mass away from Earth's axis of rotation. This increases the Earth's moment of inertia, that is, its resistance to rotational acceleration. As a result, the planet slows, the same way an ice skater does when they extend their arms away from their torso to slow a spin. So if the total mass of water stored in ice sheets and glaciers, more than 30 million gigatons was redistributed, well, the planet would

slow pretty significantly, but by how much? One calculation determined that if all the ice, Greenland alone melted, it would increase the length of a day by about two milliseconds. As Greenland's ice mass is about a tenth of the total mass of land ice, and most of the world's ice is held at high latitudes, we can extrapolate that a total melt would increase the length of a day by at least several milliseconds. Now, that may seem small and benign in our fast-paced world, but it's comparable to how much the moon slows down Earth over a century thanks to tidal friction. Although almost imperceptible to humans, technologies that rely on precise timekeeping such as GPS, satellites, flights and even space travel will be sent into complete

disarray. Speed of rotation isn't the only change. Shifts in mass cause the planet to wobble, moving the Earth's spin axis slightly from the imaginary line connecting the geographic north and south poles, in a process called polar motion. A slight shift in polar motion or axial tilt could trigger changes to climate, seasons, weather patterns, and even ocean currents, with effects ranging from subtle to dramatic, depending on the degree and speed of the shift. Northern latitudes, for example, might see longer, hotter, summers, while southern regions could get harsher winters. Ocean currents such as the Gulf

stream or even the AMOC, driven by Earth rotation, could veer off course. A slight tilt might disrupt the jet stream, leading to erratic storms. Think more hurricanes in unexpected spots or prolonged droughts. In short, these seemingly subtle changes would have huge ripple effects for those of us left here on Earth, and things don't stop there. Without massive ice sheets pushing down on Greenland and Antarctica, the land below starts a slow comeback in a process known as glacial isostatic adjustment. Imagine the Earth's crust like a squishy mattress under a heavy duvet. Well, that gigatum weight presses it down, making the edges bulge out.

Ice acts over thousands of years, turning the solid crud. trust into something more like thick honey, viscous and flowy. So what happens when you remove the ice? The depressed spots bounce back up, while the bulgy edges sink. It's like your memory foam bed reshaping after you get up, but on a planetary scale. Normally it takes millennia. In our hypothetical scenario, who knows? Amazingly, this process is actually happening as I speak.

In Scandinavia, people noticed their shoreline shifting centuries ago. The ancient port of Usthamah in Sweden became landlocked by 1491, and so the whole town was moved as a result. In the 1700s, scientists carved sea level marks on rocks and tracked the changes. In the Gulf of Bothnia, sea levels were dropping 1.4 centimetres a year, but it varied at different points, proving it was the land. rising unevenly, but why? Well, during the last glacial maximum about 21,000 years ago, huge ice sheets blanketed northern Europe and North America. As they melted, the squished land

started popping back up and so Scandinavia is still rising today. So back to our ice-melting scenario, the underlying continents which previously had ice on them would undergo post-glacial rebound on an enormous scale. Precisely how much the land would change shape and the impact this would have on local sea levels is not yet known. Calculations require greater understanding of the mantle beneath Greenland and Antarctica, as well as more exact dates of when the ice sheets first cover the land. What we do know is that sea levels would continue changing for a long time after all the water has reached the sea. In the shorter term, the immense ice loss would instantly reconfigure the Earth's gravitational field.

This could amplify sea levels in the tropics, making a 66-meter sea level rise even more catastrophic for those living near the equator. Whichever way you look at it, it's not good news. But believe it or not, there are some people that might disagree. And I think one thing we can all agree on is we'd really, really like to make sure this, does not come even vaguely close to happening. And the good news is I have something you can do right now to help. Our friends at Planet Wild are a community-based nature protection organisation. Think of them like crowdfunding but for nature. The way it works is each month their community funds a project to restore nature around the world and then they document it with a YouTube

video report so you can see the impact of your contribution in real time. It's actually their transparency that inspired us to become members in the first place. I loved one of their recent missions where they used a new piece of tech to help defend the last of Europe's ancient forests before they vanish. It was so cool. And you could help missions just like this right now. Give whatever amount you want, big or small, and you can cancel at any time. In fact, I love what they do so much. I've actually got a special treat just for you.

The first 100 people to sign up to Planet Wild using my code Astrum 11 will get their first month paid for by me. Yeah, right now. Just scan the QR code on screen or click the link in the video description. And the best part, you'll immediately have an impact and see the result in less than 30 days, as we have back to the video. In a total glacial melt, uncovering Antarctica and Greenland would bring hidden worlds to the surface for the first time in millions of years. But we already know what they might look like. Over the last century, scientists have been mapping the bedrock below the ice sheets using satellite surveys, radar, seismic reflection and gravity measurements. They found that Antarctica is made up of sharp mountains and plunging valleys.

It's home to the deepest land canyon on earth, reaching depths of three and a half kilometers below sea level. A 3D map of the continent also clearly shows the distinction between each, and West Antarctica. The east is generally more elevated, while the west is a collection of mountainous islands. These are landscapes carved by rivers and 675 recorded subglacial lakes. The largest, Lake Vostok, is 250 kilometres long,

and about four kilometres underneath the ice. There are also hundreds of volcanoes. 138 have been identified in West Antarctica alone. Greenland, on the other hand, has been mapped much less extensively. But we do know it is shaped by mountains and has at least 60, relatively small, subglacial lakes. So would an expose Greenland and Antarctica be barren, or could humans actually find a way to live there successfully? Whilst we don't know for sure, what we do know is both low.

likely have things we need, and they lie deep beneath the surface. Rare earth minerals. Commercial mining in Antarctica was banned under the Antarctic Treaty, and as such, no extensive mineral reserves have been identified, but the continent is thought to be rich in minerals including coal and oil. Similarly, in Greenland, a 2023 survey showed it has 25 of the 30. four minerals deemed critical raw materials by the European Commission, making it the eighth largest gnome reserve globally. Some have argued that this is why President Donald Trump has tried to purchase Greenland on more than one occasion. In a world without ice, could treaties be ripped up and a geopolitical land scramble take place to gain access to these resources? Well, based on our

history so far, you wouldn't bet against it. In recent years, the Arctic Circle has become the central focus of a geopolitical conflict. As the ice caps sadly melt away, nations such as the United States, Russia and China are rushing to assert ownership over the region's unclaimed territory. The Arctic sits at a critical point between North America and Eurasia, making it a powerful place from which to project military strength, and it also houses vast natural resources. A US Geological Survey estimates that the region has 48 billion cubic metres of natural gas and various other fuels, equal to the entirety of Russia's oil reserves, and three times as much as in the United States. The Chinese government has dubbed the Arctic region as their polar silk

Road, hinting at the trade routes they intend on pursuing following the acquisition of natural resources. The difference here is that China has no Arctic border, instead describing themselves as a near-arctic state, even though its northernmost regional capital, Harbin, is on roughly the same latitude as Venice in Italy. As recently as 2024, the last piece of privately owned land in the Arctic archipelago, Svalbar, was up for sale for a cool $324 million, dubbed the gates to the Arctic. In the end, the Norwegian government had to step in and cool off the sale to prevent its acquisition by China, and not for the first time. Their attempts to buy seaports in Norway and Sweden, and even an airport in Greenland have also been rebuffed. But it's not just countries that seek to benefit from the world,

melting away either. Niche money-making schemes from our thawing planet have sprung up all over the place. On a ship of Svalbar, entrepreneur Jamal Khurishi is literally picking up blocks of once Norwegian glacier ice from the ocean and bottling it. The ice is expensive and difficult to collect and purify and production is difficult too, so limited to 13,000 bottles a year and it's currently selling for $100 a bottle. In the Yakusha region of Russia, the permafrost is melting, and it's revealing 11,000-year-old mammoth remains. Demand for this ethical ivory has massively increased in China, and a tusk can fetch up to

$100,000 on the black market. The people who collect these fossilized remains are known as tuskers, carrying powerful firefighter pumps on their backs. They carve out enormous 180 feet long tunnels under the frozen ground to extract the bones. The race for the Arctic is very much on and shows that should our ice-free world ever become a reality, well it could lead to some interesting geopolitics if Antarctica and Greenland go the same way. But this is purely theoretical, a ridiculous what-if that could never happen, right? Well, the short answer is no, certainly not in many of our lifetimes at least.

The longer answer is that total ice melt is very, very unlikely, but we could get close, maybe a little too close. As we've seen, significant cryosphere loss has happened before, most recently in the last interglacial period 130,000 years ago. We know this because there's evidence of sea levels being 6 to 9 meters higher than today, meaning a large melt of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets must have occurred in the past. Global average temperatures in the last interglacial period were two degrees above pre-industrial levels, think from 1900 onwards, and we're already at 1.1 degrees higher now.

This is down to human activities, principally greenhouse gas emissions. If our emissions continue at their current high level, the intergovernmental panel for climate change, the IPCC predicts an overall temperature increase between 3.3 and 5.7 degrees by 2,100. Worryingly, the most recent IPCC report noted that sustaining the lower level of this warming between 2 and 3 degrees could eventually lead to an almost complete and irreversible loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. This would cause at least 13 metres of global sea level rise. However, they highlighted that evidence for this conclusion was limited. Other research has put a date to the complete melt of one of the ice sheets at the year

3000, producing a minimum of 7 metres of global sea level rise, assuming we don't rapidly clean up our act, that is. A thousand years might feel far away in the scope of our lives, but in the usual timeframes of climate change and indeed glaciology, this is incredibly fast. Even in the time frame of human history, this is unprecedented. Remember, we're technically still in an ice age and have had a relatively stable climate for the past 12,000 years. So both Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet could melt under sustained warming conditions. But what about the much larger East Antarctic ice sheet? We don't think it's been ice free in 66 million years, but there are big,

uncertainties under rapid global warming. With limited observations, our models of ice sheet processes and interactions with the ocean, atmosphere and bedrock are incomplete. For instance, warm ocean water can melt the base of ice shelves, which accelerates the glaciers retreat. But as ice melts, the elastic rebound of bedrock causes local sea level to fall and can stabilize the ice shelves. At the moment, we don't know how much effect each has. And these gaps in knowledge around Antarctica are driving a lot of the current research. There isn't time in this video to also flesh out other impacts like permafrost feedback and the slowing of the AMOC. But luckily we have a full video on this if you'd like more information.

There are a lot of small-scale processes that all play a part. Positive feedback mechanisms in the cryosphere. Think changes in albeda, greenhouse gas emissions and ocean heat circulation. or all those things create positive feedback mechanisms that accelerate ice loss. This means that each level of melt can lead to even more dramatic consequences. These non-linear responses to ice melt have to be accounted for in climate models to determine the full extent of the impacts, but at the moment we're still working it out. So what's the key to stopping all this and keeping this scenario hypothetical?

Well, you already know the answer to this, I'm sure. significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slowing the temperature rise as soon as possible. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Now more people than ever can bring in their bill for a better deal at Verizon. Got AT&T or T-Mobile? We got you. Xfinity or Spectrum? You too. So tell your friends, your family, your quirky neighbor Jeff. Grab your megaphone and yell it from the rooftop. Get a better deal at Verizon.

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Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. As we come to the end of our journey around a very different-looking planet Earth, we've dared to stare into the darkest possible depths of our very existence. Countries would be lost, continents reshaped and cities destroyed. Billions would suffer and many more would cease to exist at all. Meanwhile, there are leaders, countries and even individuals as you watch this, currently preparing to profit from such eventualities. Some are even doing so already.

To be honest with you, when I first started writing this video, an ice-free world felt almost novel, or silly hypothetical game of chance. But the more I've peeled back the layers and seen what would actually happen, the closer this terrifying reality seems to get, and the more urgent the situation has become. Fortunately, there is still time to make a change and make this hypothetical world just that.

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