Featured Image Credit: Business Insider
There's growing concern about the effects of global warming on the planet and what it could mean for us on planet Earth.
What would the Earth look like if all the ice melted?
NASA data reveals some sobering data: Antarctica sheds an average of 150 billion tons of ice annually, while Greenland is losing approximately 270 billion tons.
Additionally, National Geographic showed a scenario in 2013 whereby sea levels would rise by 216 feet if all the land ice were to melt, reshaping continents and submerging major cities.
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Back nine years ago, a video released by Business Insider Science showed us what the future could look like if all the ice melted.
The terrifying animation of the coastlines and major cities that would become flooded due to the rising water levels.
Specifically, cities across the globe like London, Venice Miami, Buenos Aires, and Cairo would all go underwater. Meanwhile, Australia would lose a big chunk of its coastal strip - where 80% where most people live.
Shanghai would be swallowed up by the East China Sea, and Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains would be left as an island due to the overflow of the Mekong Delta.
Africa might lose less land, on the other hand, but it would face unbearable heat waves, making parts of the continent uninhabitable.
Ricarda Winkelmann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: 'This would not happen overnight, but the mind-boggling point is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years to come.
'If we want to stop this from happening, we need to keep coal, gas, and oil in the ground.'
This isn't just some wild guess about the future either. While it might not happen in our lifetimes, scientists have been warning us for years that permanent ice on Earth could disappear, our future could soon look very bleak if efforts aren't made.
Furthermore, with enough carbon in the atmosphere, rising sea levels would be the least of our worries.
The average temperature would consequently reach around 26.6 degrees Celsius, almost double the current temperature of 14.4 degrees Celsius, which could spell disaster for all living things on Earth.
