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Bill Nye Explains What Would Happen If All Of Earth's Ice Melted

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clock-iconPUBLISHEDSeptember 13, 2016

Bill Nye Explains What Would Happen If All Of Earth's Ice Melted

Tom Hale headshot

Tom Hale

Tom Hale headshot

Tom Hale

Senior Journalist

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture.

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Senior Journalist

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture.View full profile

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture.

View full profile
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Volodymyr Goinyk/Shutterstock

AsapSCIENCE has enlisted the help of the legendary Bill Nye to explain in colorful detail what would happen if the globe's 30 million cubic kilometers (7.1 million cubic miles) of frozen water thawed away.

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Unfortunately, this is not strictly hypothetical. The total melting of Earth's ice is a long way off, but declining levels of sea ice is a very real problem. This year, alongside climate records continually being broken, the Arctic sea ice extent has been the lowest recorded for January, February, April, May, and June. 

The most widely-known effect of this is rising sea levels, which, as you can imagine, isn’t good news for many of the world’s largest cities that thrive along coasts and river mouths. But that’s just a small chapter of the story. See for yourself below.

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHEDSeptember 13, 2016

Written by Tom Hale

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