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Suppose that at a certain moment, the waters of the Earth mysteriously disappear, leaving a hole of up to 1.3 billion cubic kilometers.
What will be the fate of the planet?
01
The origin of life has long been a major mystery that scientists have explored and studied.
The blue planet we live on was very different from what it is today, with a lack of oxygen in its atmosphere and no ozone layer to protect life from ultraviolet rays, which makes the living environment on the surface extremely harsh.
Under such conditions, life seems impossible to exist, however, the spark of life is mysteriously ignited at some point.
How exactly does this happen?
Imagine if 70% of the Earth's area was land and only 30% was oceans, how would that affect the origin of life?
The birth of life could be delayed into an unpredictable future due to the lack of an adequate marine environment, and could even lead to the emergence of humans as a species becoming an impossible hypothesis.
It is these oceans, especially the hydrothermal vents in their depths, that provide key clues to the origin of life.
In the process of exploring the origin of life, scientists have gradually paid attention to these special places in the deep sea - submarine hot vents.
The unique environmental conditions of these places, including high temperatures, abundant chemicals, and the presence of energy sources, constitute potential cradles for the birth of life.
Without the protection of oxygen, life on Earth would not have been able to withstand the intense solar radiation and cosmic rays, but the protective effect of seawater, especially the shielding effect of the deep-sea environment, provided a shelter for life.
The hydrothermal vent hypothesis offers an unprecedented view that life is not only born, but also able to survive and reproduce in the harshest environment on Earth.
Early microorganisms may have used the abundant chemical energy provided by hydrothermal vents as a driving force for survival, and their presence and evolution provided a clue to the possible path of the origin and evolution of life.
This reliance on chemical energy may have been the only way for the original species to survive, which explains why early life forms were able to thrive in an oxygen-deprived environment.
When we look back at the origins of life, we need to consider not only the complexity of life itself, but also a deep understanding of the role of the Earth's early geological and environmental conditions.
The hydrothermal vent hypothesis not only shows how life is born in extreme environments, it also reveals that life finds its way to exist even in the most unlikely places.
So what would happen if the Earth's seawater disappeared?
02
Imagine that if the sea water disappeared in an instant, a huge hole would form on the surface of the earth, with a volume of a staggering 1.332 billion cubic kilometers.
Air rushes into this vacuum region at speeds of up to 1,000 km/h. This extreme air movement will lead to a global hurricane that will be far more powerful than any previous storm.
As the atmosphere pours into this hole, the atmospheric pressure on the Earth's surface will drop dramatically, similar to humans being suddenly sent to a plateau region at an altitude of almost 8,000 meters, such as a city like La Paz, but in this fictional scenario, the "new altitude" of La Paz is even higher than nearly 8,000 meters due to the greater lack of air.
Humans and other organisms will suffer from severe hypoxia and will need time to adapt to this drastic change in air pressure, which is not possible for many life forms.
The disappearance of seawater also causes the earth's crust to lose a huge amount of water weight, which weighs up to 10^18 tons.
The Earth's crust is originally stable under the balance of this enormous pressure, and if this balance is lost, the crust will be subjected to air shocks, and the speed is equally astonishing.
Such an impact is enough to violently deform the earth's crust, similar to the expansion and brittleness of a piece of metal at high temperatures, and the fracture of the earth's crust will cause a series of earthquakes of unprecedented scale and frequency.
In this extreme scenario, the Earth loses 96.5% of its water, leaving only fresh water stored in clouds, rivers and lakes, underground aquifers and glaciers.
Although humans do not drink seawater directly, the existence of seawater is essential to the global water cycle, without which the amount of fresh water is far from meeting the needs of global organisms, and living organisms, including humans, will face serious survival challenges.
03
This unprecedented vacuum immediately caused the ecosystem of marine life to collapse in an instant, and the crust of the seabed, which had been stabilized by water pressure, began to undergo changes.
In the first minute of the disappearance of the sea, the large cargo ships lose the buoyancy support of the water, as if falling from a high altitude, they crash and shatter on the seabed, making a loud roar.
And those creatures that live in the ocean, including the huge whales, have suffered a merciless fate, and their death emits a pungent smell and become silent witnesses to this tragedy.
Ten minutes later, the Earth's crust began to elastically pick up and spread to the continental plates, causing a sudden increase in seismic activity around the world.
The instability of the Earth's crust eventually led to drastic changes in the structure of the seafloor within a week, and the eruption of active volcanoes became the new normal, further changing the face of the Earth.
The effects of the disappearance of seawater quickly spread to the global climate system, and in less than a day, a dramatic change in atmospheric pressure caused precipitation to turn into frost, and the Earth quickly entered a frozen age.
People began to realize the seriousness of the problem, and the construction of underground shelters became an urgent task.
A month has passed, the earth has become extremely arid, the depletion of water sources has killed plants and food crops, the amount of water in rivers and lakes has decreased dramatically, and there are no more rain clouds in the sky.
The world has become devastated, and the lack of water, the source of life, has turned the surface of the earth into a barren land.
Three months later, an even more deadly crisis emerged – rising carbon dioxide concentrations.
This change poses a deadly threat to life on Earth, with more than 80% of living species becoming extinct in the process.
Half a year later, the depletion of freshwater resources was exacerbated, with ecosystems depriving themselves of water, the source of their life, causing vegetation to die, and the ensuing heat sparked uncontrollable fires.
These fires not only destroyed the remaining greenery, but also released large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating the greenhouse effect.
A year later, the situation has taken a turn for the worse.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has surged to 80%, and the temperature of the Earth's surface has risen to an unimaginable 100 degrees Celsius.
Biodiversity has been devastated, with 99% of species extinct and only a handful of microbes still struggling.
Technology and wisdom seem to be towers in the sand in the face of nature's rage, easily destroyed.
In the next few years, the face of the Earth will change completely, becoming a desolate and yellow planet like Venus.
Billions of years ago, Venus may have had surging oceans and vibrant life.
But with the intensification of the greenhouse effect, its environment has changed dramatically.
Scientists theorize that intense solar radiation and the rapid evaporation of water may have triggered a chain of environmental collapses on Venus.
As water disappears, so does life, and Venus transforms into a desolate world with extremely high temperatures, enormous atmospheric pressure, and a surface covered in sulphuric acid clouds.
04
This thought experiment, while extreme and unrealistic, reveals the importance of the ocean to the stability of the planet's environment.
It reminds us of the importance of the ocean to the Earth's ecosystem, which is not only a treasure trove of biodiversity, but also supports critical Earth systems such as climate regulation, oxygen production, and the carbon cycle.
Without the oceans, the Earth as we know it will cease to exist and transform into a completely different world full of disasters.
Through this extreme thought experiment, we can gain a deeper understanding of the preciousness of the ocean and our dependence on it.
Although this scenario is fictional, the science on which it is based tells us how important it is to protect the ocean and the environment we live in.