• Question: in the future (billions of years maybe) will the world eventually be covered in water with no land?

    Asked by anon-1953 to Donna, Jo, Mark, timcraggs on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Donna MacCallum

      Donna MacCallum answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      that is a really, really good question – probably depends upon whether there is enough water to cover all of the land. my guess would be that there will always be some land above the water – but willit be enough for the human race to exist on?

    • Photo: Joanna Buckley

      Joanna Buckley answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Well, we have the same amount of water as we’ve always had. When early man was walking about, he had the same amount of water as us to play with.

      The icecaps might melt, as they’re starting to do now and some low lying countries (sorry Holland!) might be lost but I don’t think water will cover the whole world. That means the water would have to rise by 8850 meters as that’s the height of Everest. That’s going some! 🙂

    • Photo: Tim Craggs

      Tim Craggs answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Hi Alphabet!

      No I think that far in the future all the water will have been boiled off the earth as the sun grows bigger and earth gets hotter and hotter until it is actually swallowed up by the sun. But that is not for 4 billion years or so, so don’t sweat it!

    • Photo: Mark Lancaster

      Mark Lancaster answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Well on that timescale as sun starts to burn up its fuel – the sun will get larger and more luminous and the temperature on the earth will increase which is more likely to vapourise the water than leave the earth covered in water…

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