The human race would obviously not survive for very long in a world without water. Since water is one of the fundamental elements required for life to exist, the same can be stated of all creatures and plants.
The planet itself, though, what would that mean? It would undoubtedly appear completely different if there were no oceans, rivers, or lakes, but how else might it change? Here are a few outcomes that might occur if the water on our beautiful, green Earth completely disappeared overnight.
Changing personas
It wouldn’t be quite so green for very long, to start. Without a water source, all life would quickly vanish, leaving the Earth looking more like a brownish dot than a green and blue one. The formation of clouds would halt, and precipitation would stop as a necessary result. As a result, wind patterns would control the weather virtually exclusively.
Our environment would resemble an unending summer, but not the kind where people wear shorts and t-shirts while vacationing; rather, it would be unbearably hot. The world’s seas hold the largest carbon reserves (and it has recently been discovered that melting ice in the Arctic also released nitrous oxides (NO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2)). When these “sinks” are eliminated, greenhouse gases have a field day, and temperatures increase dramatically.
Our environment would resemble an unending summer, but not the kind where people wear shorts and t-shirts while vacationing; rather, it would be unbearably hot. The world’s seas hold the largest carbon reserves (and it has recently been discovered that melting ice in the Arctic also released nitrous oxides (NO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2)). When these “sinks” are eliminated, greenhouse gases have a field day, and temperatures increase dramatically.
It stands to reason that the lack of flora would exacerbate the issue as there wouldn’t be any plants to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into oxygen. Climate change challenges of today would appear insignificant in comparison.
More mountains, fewer volcanoes
Unexpectedly, though, a lack of water would cause volcanic activity to decline. Tectonic plates clashing and running over one another, which is typically brought on by the weight of oceans pushing one plate beneath another, is what truly causes volcanoes, supervolcanoes, and their eruptions.
Additionally, after the volcano has developed, water is essential to its volatility. When liquid inside the Earth’s crust is heated and under intense pressure, it turns into magma, causing eruptions like the one at Mount Vesuvius, which devastated poor old Pompeii.
Therefore, any time two tectonic plates clashed, we would be left with a sequence of extraordinarily high mountain ridges since there would be no ocean to weigh plates down or water to fuel eruptions. It goes without saying that such a process would take eons to complete, but the end result would be a desert-like, desolate planet dotted with jagged peaks and gaping chasms.
Let life exist
Interestingly, though, this wouldn’t result in the extinction of all life on Earth. Some microorganisms known as “extremophiles” have developed over millennia to be capable of existence without water because evolution has a strange way of persevering even in the most trying of circumstances.
Instead, they obtain their nutrients from carbon monoxide (CO), which enables them to survive without water or sunshine even in scorching heat or acidic situations. Some of them live beneath the crust of the Earth, while others are effectively inactive inside enormous subterranean crystals, suspended in time.
So even though life would undoubtedly end due to humans and the animal kingdom, life would still find a way.
