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Global Flooding: What If The Polar Ice Caps Melt Entirely?
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Mar 31, 2025
The polar ice caps are melting. And this has already led to an increase in the sea level. Between now and 2100, it is estimated that the sea level will rise anywhere from 1 foot up to 7 feet. But that's nothing compared to the extreme sea level rise if the polar ice caps melt entirely. If that were to happen, entire regions and countries would be completely under water.
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The planet is heating up, and nowhere is this more acutely felt than the polar ice caps
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While those of us living in the rest of the world deal with more severe storms, intense wildfires, and an increase in miserably hot days overall
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the polar regions are facing an existential crisis. So what if the polar ice caps melt entirely
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Hello and welcome to What If Geography, where we try and answer the great geographic what-if questions of the world. I'm your host, Jeff Gibson, and today we're going to
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talk about sea level rise. More specifically, what would our planet look like if the polar
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ice caps melt? It's going to be anything but a dry subject, so strap on your life vest and let's dive
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in. To understand what's happening in our polar regions, we have to first take a look at what's
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happening globally. Since about 1940, the world has largely been warming. In fact, since 1980
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the world's average temperature has increased by about 0.2 degrees Celsius each decade
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That might not seem too bad. After all, there are probably been days when you've desperately wished it was just a little bit warmer
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But as an average temperature increase over the entire planet, it's quite serious
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Because while an average of 0.2 degrees Celsius might not feel that terrible
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we have to remember that it's just an average. And an average is simply taking all of the data points all over the planet
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as well as all of the data points from all of those places at each day multiple times per day
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and distilling them into just one number. So this average of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade is not really illustrating events
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such as the current record-breaking heat wave in India, where temperatures are over 50 degrees Celsius
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Nor would it account for the heat dome that enveloped Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia in 2021
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where temperatures hit a record-shattering 49 degrees Celsius. It also doesn't consider the increase in severity of hurricanes
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nor the mega drought impacting the southwest region of the United States. And perhaps most importantly, this single average number is not looking at temperature increases
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in more geographically sensitive areas, such as the polar ice caps. Climate change is amplified in the polar regions
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The northern and southern reaches of the planet are warming faster than anywhere else on Earth
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with the Arctic Ocean and air temperatures rising twice as fast. This is primarily because the current ice caps that exist in the North and South Pole
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reflect light and therefore heat back into space As the ice caps melt more land or water is exposed underneath which then absorbs more heat than the ice that previously lived on top As that water and land heats up it contributes
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to melting even more ice, which leads to a nasty feedback loop. All of this, of course, is caused
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by billions of tons of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere by humans. Our
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addiction to burning fossil fuels for energy is directly contributing to the polar ice caps
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melting today. Ultimately, this will have devastating consequences for human civilization, for one simple reason, sea level rise
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Today, we're only starting to feel the very subtle effects of sea level rise
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And usually it comes with another disaster such as a hurricane. But sea level rise is a slow
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ever creeping disaster for billions of people. A disaster for which we unfortunately
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don't have very many solutions for. But before we get into the consequences
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of sea level rise tomorrow, if you're enjoying this video today, now would be a great time to subscribe
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More fun geography videos are just one click away. Humans are particularly susceptible to sea level rise because, as it turns out, a lot of us live near the ocean
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As of 2017, it was estimated that 2.4 billion people live within 100 kilometers of the coast
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This includes some of the world's largest and most populous cities such as New York City, Lagos, Shanghai, London, Sydney, Tokyo, and many, many more
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And perhaps even more immediately important is that, of those 2.4 billion people, over 600 million
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of them live in coastal regions that are less than 10 meters above sea level. Some cities
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such as Amsterdam and New Orleans, exist under the current sea level. Both of these cities are
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able to continue to function only because billions of dollars have been spent on a system of levees
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floodgates, and floodplains which hold back the ocean or absorb it before it reaches human
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civilization. But these systems of levees work only in limited geographic space. After all
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It's one thing to build a system of levees for a relatively small region, such as the area around Amsterdam
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but when you have to think about doing it for the entire eastern seaboard of the United States
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that might not even be possible. And while Amsterdam and New Orleans are already below the sea level
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they both at least already have systems in place to handle sea level rise and sea surges caused by storms
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Miami, Florida, and New York City, however, do not. These two cities are prime examples of the damages and dangers caused by sea level rise
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as both have suffered from extreme flooding in recent years due to hurricanes
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This level of flooding would not have been possible were it not for the ever creep of the oceans rising over the last few decades And unfortunately for them and the rest of the 2 billion people living near the coast sea level rise is expected to get worse over the next 80
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years. Since 1880, the sea level has risen by about 21 to 24 centimeters. This is primarily
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caused by two things, one invisible effect and one very visible effect. The first invisible effect
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is that as the planet has warmed over the last century, the water itself has warmed as well
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And as that water warms, it expands taking up more space than it did when it was colder and more constricted
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The second very visible effect is that glaciers and ice sheets worldwide are melting and simply adding more water to the ocean overall
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Of course, with the polar ice caps being both, one, the regions heating up the fastest from climate change inducing emissions
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and two, the regions with the most amount of water locked into a permanent state of ice
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we're staring down a scenario where sea level rise starts to really ratchet up
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Over the next 80 years, it's expected that the sea will rise to some degree that is detrimental to millions of humans
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And there's no more debate on if it will happen, but rather how fast it will happen and how much it will rise
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And to figure this out, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have laid out six different scenarios for our inevitable future
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If the world is able to get its fossil fuel addiction under control and cease polluting
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the result would be the low scenario where in the year 2100, the sea level would only rise by about 30 centimeters
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Keep in mind that this is still more than has already occurred to date, and we're already feeling the effects of sea level rise
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So this scenario is still going to be very damaging. Also note that this scenario is not at all likely to happen
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From there, it continually ramps up. Under the intermediate low scenario, also unlikely
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it would get pretty close to 60 centimeters of sea level rise. At our current pace of carbon pollution, it would be about 75 centimeters of sea level rise
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At this point, by the way, much of Miami is now permanently underwater
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From here, things really pick up. If we start emitting more carbon, we can hit a scenario where by 2100
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the sea has risen by almost two and a half meters. That's a disaster
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But while our current projections are scary, it's still far more mild than a scenario
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where the polar ice caps melt entirely. To put this in perspective, if the entire North Pole sea ice were to melt
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the sea would rise by about seven and a half meters, far more than even our worst year 2100 projection
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At seven and a half meters of sea level rise, the entire southern tip of Florida is gone including the entire metropolitan area of Miami The same can be said of Savannah Georgia Charleston South Carolina Norfolk Virginia and great big chunks
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of Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. Internationally, Shanghai, China, Hanoi, Vietnam
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and Bangkok, Thailand are also almost entirely submerged. And this isn't even counting for all
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of the island countries that would basically just disappear if the sea levels were to rise by seven
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and a half meters. And while the North Pole losing all of its ice is scary and would devastate cities
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and countries around the world, it's really nothing compared to if Antarctica loses its ice sheet
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If the South Pole melts entirely, the sea level is estimated to rise by a staggering 60 meters
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At this point, we're no longer talking about whole cities being underwater. We're talking
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about entire states, regions, and major countries. Florida, of course, is basically entirely submerged
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as is much of the eastern seaboard. In California, the Bay Area has now flooded
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into the California Central Valley, creating a literal new sea. The entire regions of Northern Argentina
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and Southern Uruguay are now part of the ocean. Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau
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are now more water than land. Denmark and much of Northern Germany
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including Hamburg and Berlin, are now underwater. Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul are all swimming with the fishes
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and so on and so on. The devastation at this level would be both incredible and terrible
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Even my home city of Portland, Oregon, which lies about 100 kilometers inland
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would be mostly submerged. Everyone would feel the effects of such jaw-dropping sea level rise
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If not directly, then indirectly by a wave of billions of humans
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migrating to higher altitudes. Thankfully, we're not in danger of Antarctica losing all of its ice
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Even the high scenario for the year 2100, where the sea level would rise by about two and a half meters
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is considered unlikely at this point. So we don't really have to worry about 60 meters just yet
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The one caveat here is that, as humans, we've constantly underestimated the devastating effects
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of climate change. For our sake, I hope this is one of the few times we're overestimating it
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Sea level rise is happening right now, but it's a slow process that will take place over decades
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and centuries, so you don't necessarily have to worry about anything right now. That said
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sea level rise is just one more aspect of climate change that we're going to have to deal with
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eventually. And right now, we don't have very many practical solutions to tackle it
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I hope you enjoyed today's episode on Sea Level Rise. If you did, please subscribe to my channel, and if you want to watch more of my videos
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you can do so right here. Thanks for watching. See you next time
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