We have all heard the warnings. Sea levels are rising. But what would happen to a world without ice?
In a dramatic demonstration, Business Insider released a video recently showing just how many major cities throughout the world would be threatened or destroyed if the polar ice caps completely melted.
Australia would have an isthmus. San Francisco Bay would flood Oakland and Berkeley. Forget about Baja California. And perhaps the most stunning effect, virtually all of Florida and the Gulf Coast would be completely wiped out.
Whether or not this is a realistic scenario can be debated. In a 2013 National Geographic report, scientists estimated sea levels would rise 216 feet if all the land ice on the planet were to melt. Currently, sea levels have been rising at a greater rate year after year, and scientists say much of the trend in global warming cannot be reversed. Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that sea levels would rise another meter or more by the end of this century.
