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What If All the Sea Water Becomes Fresh Water?
WHAT IF
Follow
2/21/2024
What if we didn’t have to worry about water consumption?
Category
📺
TV
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
Where do you go to quench your thirst?
00:07
The kitchen sink?
00:09
The local bar?
00:10
The mineral-rich springs of Bergamo, Italy?
00:13
In the 21st century,
00:15
you don't have to go that far for fresh water.
00:17
But still, supply is running out.
00:20
What if we didn't have to worry about water consumption?
00:24
What if you could drink and shower as much as you wanted?
00:28
What if a trip to the well and a trip to the beach were one and the same?
00:32
You might give a lot for those privileges.
00:35
But how much would it really cost?
00:38
This is WHAT IF,
00:39
and here's what would happen if all seawater became fresh water.
00:44
The first big question we have to ask is,
00:47
why is the ocean so salty to begin with?
00:50
Well, it wasn't always like that.
00:52
About 3.8 billion years ago,
00:54
Earth's surface had finally cooled to the point that water vapor turned to liquid.
00:59
No salt added.
01:01
That's right, a really, really long time ago,
01:03
the oceans were fresh water.
01:05
But that wasn't going to last.
01:07
Whenever it rains,
01:08
carbon dioxide from the air dissolves into the falling water.
01:12
This makes the rain slightly acidic,
01:14
and when it falls, it causes rocks to erode.
01:17
From there, rainwater slides towards nearby rivers and streams,
01:21
taking loose salt and minerals along with it.
01:24
From there, this runoff flows from rivers into the ocean.
01:28
Add to that any additional salt and minerals
01:30
that would be expelled from hydrothermal vents or submarine volcanoes,
01:34
and then consider that this whole process
01:36
has been recurring more or less consistently for 3.8 billion years.
01:40
That's a lot of salt.
01:42
In fact, there's so much salt in the ocean
01:44
that if you spread it evenly across all the land on Earth,
01:48
it would amount to one towering layer of salt that's 40 stories tall.
01:52
97% of all the water on Earth is saline,
01:56
and we've got to assume it's for a reason.
01:58
So what would our world look like if we took the salt out of the sea?
02:02
Freshwater oceans sure do sound like a godsend.
02:05
Right now, it's predicted that a third of the world
02:08
will be facing chronic water shortages by 2025.
02:12
At our current rate of consumption,
02:13
the global demand for fresh water doubles every 20 years.
02:17
So maybe freshwater oceans would actually yield a good outcome this time?
02:21
Nope.
02:22
A sea without salt would decimate marine life
02:25
and dramatically affect our weather and temperatures,
02:28
making human life on Earth very difficult, if not impossible.
02:31
There are roughly 228,450 species in the ocean,
02:36
and as many as 2 million more to be discovered.
02:39
But if the ocean were to become desalinated, we'd never find them.
02:42
Saltwater fish and other ocean creatures
02:45
evolved to be able to drink saltwater to stay hydrated,
02:48
and get rid of excess salt.
02:50
Not all sea creatures do this the same way,
02:51
but being able to pump out excess salt is crucial to surviving in the ocean.
02:56
Some species, like salmon, have adapted to tolerate freshwater and saltwater.
03:01
But for the most part, all saltwater species would perish.
03:05
This includes underwater algae, which, believe it or not,
03:08
accounts for half the photosynthesis that occurs on Earth.
03:11
Photosynthesis plays a vital role in supplying our planet with oxygen,
03:15
since trees and plants convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
03:18
into the air we breathe.
03:20
So without algae, not only do we get less oxygen,
03:23
we also have a lot more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
03:26
This intensification of the greenhouse effect
03:29
would make some parts of the world unbearably hot.
03:32
You'd definitely notice this intense heat near the equator,
03:35
since our ocean currents wouldn't be circulating warm water and air the way they used to.
03:39
Convection currents help warm water from the equator get farther north,
03:43
while colder water from the north is able to cool hotter areas down south.
03:48
At the equator, warmer water can carry more salt,
03:51
so this denser water sinks lower,
03:53
while cooler water flows over top of it.
03:56
And in the far north, the water gets cold enough to freeze and form sea ice.
04:00
Salt gets left behind as the water freezes,
04:03
and naturally, this makes colder water up north denser,
04:06
allowing it to sink to the bottom,
04:08
to make room for the incoming warmer water that's worked its way up from the south.
04:12
But without salt, the whole process breaks down.
04:15
Earth's extremities would freeze, while weather around the equator would intensify.
04:20
For one thing, hurricanes would be a lot more frequent, and a lot more deadly.
04:25
At this point, our weather and our climate would be totally different from how we know it now.
04:29
How long would we survive to see all these changes?
04:32
Not long at all.
04:34
You'd either freeze, overheat, die in a natural disaster, or starve to death.
04:39
Yeah, with significantly less photosynthesis,
04:41
and climates that are either extremely cold or extremely hot,
04:45
our weather would no longer support the diverse plant life it has now.
04:48
The entire food chain would collapse.
04:51
Most species would die off, including humans,
04:53
since crops we rely on for sustenance would all disappear.
04:56
So when we say ocean salinization is important,
05:00
don't take it with a grain of salt.
05:01
Of course, we respect the scientific method,
05:04
so keep questioning the world and its properties, on land and beyond.
05:08
And come back soon for another WHAT IF.
05:11
[music]
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