What If Water and Land Suddenly Switched Places?

imagine a world where the cities we know are underwater and what used to be the ocean is now a Barren Wast land this is a world where every bit of water and land have suddenly switched places cities like New York and Paris would find themselves underwater tsunamis would come rushing into the cities destroying everything and if you're on a boat you'd find yourself falling down down down down into a dry ocean bed the Amazon rainforest would be flooded and ancient diseases would come back to life which species of animals and plants would farare the best

is there any way humans could survive this and what would our new Earth look like this is what if and here's what would happen if water and land suddenly switched places what of the more unexpected changes we'd see in this scenario would be significant climate change this would be because of changing weather patterns and changing ocean currents and because this dramatic change is happening overnight we won't have time to prepare for it but what if we knew this massive switch was coming ahead of time would there be anything we could do to stop it well

to answer that let's take a look at our own climate issues that we're dealing with here on Earth right now climate change is causing Global sea levels to rise at an alarming rate leaving some of the world's biggest cities like London and Bangkok facing significant threats within a few decades if we don't do anything to stop it with this much advanced notice well you'd think everyone would be taking action to prevent this Grim future but as we all know that's not the case some people won't believe or care about climate change until they're faced with

an extreme situation like the one we're talking about today but many people do want to help and make a difference they just don't know how well I might have just the solution say hello to solar slice the startup company making it easy for you to make a real difference in the fight against climate change solar slice lets you directly fund large scale solar Farms with their app you can track your energy production and carbon savings and even earn rewards to further support other climate initiatives here's how works first you sponsor a slice of their large

scale solar farm adding 50 watts of clean energy to the grid and reducing harmful emissions then you can use their app to track your impact with real-time data on your slice's energy production and carbon savings you earn Eco points as your slices generate clean energy points you can use to buy more slices plant more trees or fund more meaningful initiatives and if you want to expand your impact even further you can share your progress with others create group initiatives With Friends or send solar slices as eco-conscious gifts to learn more visit solar slice.com you'll find

a link to their Kickstarter Campaign which will help fund the construction of their first solar farm and development of their app with the help of solar slice we've got a chance to prevent a future where our cities are swallowed by Rising Seas the people in our story on the other hand might not be so lucky okay it's safe to say that water and land switching places would be the start of a new mass extinction your cities towns and any bit of dry land are now covered with water water now covers 21% of the globe and

land covers the other 79% that means we'll have new oceans we've now got the North American ocean the South American Ocean and the European African and Asian oceans all connected by narrow channels of water and a new super large continent in ities people might have to run into skyscrapers to save themselves from drowning they'll be looking outside wondering when the waters are going to recede unfortunately the answer is never because in our new world water is here to stay on the old land in this scenario there would be two kinds of unlucky people first the

ones who were outside on dry land and couldn't swim they would have drowned immediately the second group are the ones who lived far away from many kind of water because now they'd be surrounded by water with no ability to get to land unless they had a boat stored somewhere maybe you'd be one of the lucky ones if you lived in a coastal city say like New York the Hudson River would now be bone dry maybe you'd grab a tire inner tube and put on your swimsuit in a backpack and swim out to the dry riverbed

now what about the animals well unfortunately marine life would be toast or soggy toast if all the water suddenly disappeared from lakes rivers and oceans fish would be left gasping for air and would die almost instantly riverbeds and dried up oceans would be piled up with the carcasses of dead marine animals no more whales sharks or any kind of fish say goodbye to Sushi now on the bright side looking at this new world of Ocean Floors might be a fascinating experience after all maps of oceans here on Earth are less detailed than Maps we've made

of Mars scientists find 2300 new ocean species every year if we didn't have the water to stop us we'd find hundreds of thousands of new species unfortunately they'd all be dead and animals in forests might have it even worse instead of a swift death they might be left to suffer big cats like tigers and lions forced to climb up into trees they might find themselves sharing the canopy with Apes other animals like zebras and giraffes would be carried away by the current and drown so some of our land animals would survive and others would go

extinct but regardless of who makes it out alive ecosystems would be savagely altered but there are two species that would do particularly well in this scenario the first are reptiles crocodiles Turtles alligators they're used to living on both water and land and as they generally hang out in water close to land well they won't have to crawl far to find a new habitat it'll be right next door the second group that'll do great is insects 66 million years ago when the chickaloo impactor hit Earth and the planet was full of dead decaying matter insects had

a feast count on a repeat of that scenario as insects jump on anything that's rotting the bad news well with swarms of mosquit diseases like malaria are likely to break out among humans now besides insects swarming everywhere the other major problem in our new switched World well there's no electricity with power plants submerged in water there will be damage to electrical circuits that can't be repaired because the water is not going away for the first time you realize how dependent you are on energy heck your 13th floor toilet won't flush anymore because water is pumped

up to it using electricity there's no television and of course there's no internet many of the world's population would be gone from this catastrophe but there is a lucky set of humans who survive this horror they are the 40% of the world's population who live in coastal cities or they might live next to a lake which is now an island they've somehow lived through the initial tsunami their land is now water but they can make their way to safety on the California coast they scramble onto the new shore of Pacifica the old Pacific Ocean from

New York they doggy paddle to Atlantica the Old Atlantic Ocean to get the world back to normal everything will have to be built from the ground up homes agriculture Transportation the list is endless and challenging building any kind of new home will be hard without materials like wood or cement but there is one thing we could use trash yeah it's estimated that there are over five trillion pieces of trash in our oceans once the water leaves the oceans humans could get resourceful and use the leftover garbage to make structures to live in kind of gross

yeah I know but at least it's been washed most land plants now will be submerged in water and will die which means no access to fresh fruits and vegetables without vitamin C scurvy the disease Sailors used to get will increase what is available is huge amounts of fish that have just died now smart Foodies will get to work they dry and salt the fish to preserve it for the future pickling will be the new trend access to freshwater will be very limited the humans who survive will be in for a punishing time now in the

medium term the big challenge for humans will come from a shift in our climate our vast oceans play a key role in moderating our temperature today as they shrink to a quarter of the area they once were Earth will get much much hotter water absorbs a large amount of heat but with the total Water Area reduced to 21% of Earth's surface oceans won't absorb as much energy from the Sun as they do today there will also be less water to absorb carbon dioxide with oceans absorbing less heat and with more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere

Earth will get pretty toasty also today's ocean currents are able to distribute the heat that they absorb to different parts of the world in this new geography the paths these currents are able to take will have bottlenecks that will prevent the smooth flow of water look how narrow the new Latin American channel is less water surface surface also means less water vapor and less rainfall in this new world prepare yourself for dry desert-like conditions your best chance for survival will be to live near the coast expensive Coastal real estate that's one thing That Remains the

Same now let's say an enterprising group of humans somehow survives this catastrophe how will life evolve well humans will become insect and reptile eaters connoisseurs of pickled fish but that'll be a tricky balance because with many of our previous weapons now lost underwater hunting crocodiles won't be easy and if humans Wipe Out the reptile population that eliminates an important food source unfortunately slower moving turtles will probably be quickly hunted into Extinction reptiles that can Retreat further into the new oceans far away from humans will have a better chance at survival in general smaller members of

any surviving species will do better as they can get by with less food over millions of years they'll evolve and as Earth's food sources get reestablished the species will become bigger again birds are also likely to survive though with trees gone nesting becomes a challenge maybe they'll build nests in the top floors of old skyscrapers and don't forget with the destruction of ocean Plankton and all of our land-based plant life over time oxygen will settle at a new lower level equilibrium unless plants begin to grow again on both land and in water this lower level

of oxygen will cause all species to evolve in new ways mammals may have bigger red blood cells bigger lungs or smaller bodies to use their oxygen more efficiently and insect sizes will decrease over time as less oxygen will be available to them now of course the big question is will humans survive such a catastrophic event well it's hard to say but if we look back in time human populations have rebounded from numbers as small as a few thousand so yeah it's possible if humans do survive we'll emerge stronger and heer than ever before we'll build

a new civilization on what's now become a hot brown marble hey who knows maybe even one day we'll become an advanced level seven civilization but that sounds like a story for another what if