What if you drained the oceans?

How quickly would the oceans drain if a circular portal 20 meters in diameter appeared at the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean? How would the Earth change as the water is being drained?

Credits
*******
Randall Munroe | Narrator
Henry Reich | Writer & Director
Lizah van der Aart | Illustration and Video Editing
Ever Salazar | Chief Chaos Controller
Know Art Studios | Music & Sound Effects

What If? The Video Series is the official adaptation of the What If? books by Randall Munroe and is produced by Neptune Studios LLC.

Henry Reich is the creator of MinutePhysics and executive producer of MinuteEarth and MinuteFood and founder of Neptune Studios LLC (the parent company for all three youtube channels).

©2024 xkcd, inc.

[Sean-Richards]

"What if you drained the oceans?"
"The Netherlands liked that"

[talentlesscommenter]

At least everything will be accessible by protected bike lanes

[archysimpson]

Everyone: the oceans are gone

The Dutch: it's free real estate

[Dr.Matchstick]

i think my favourite part of this is the untold part

the eventual panic for the somewhat small period between knowing the portal is BEAMING water onto mars and the realization of the earth part of the portal, aswell as the further panic as new portals show up/ the portal gets bigger

[DrinkinPasta]

Was not expecting "the Dutch take over the world" to be the answer to this

[fableagain]

As a dutch person, when you showed the first map even before you'd mentioned the dutch, my first thought was "wow, we'd finally be free of the rising sealevel! We wouldn't need to maintain our dykes anymore!" So uh.... Yeah. The rest of the video felt as if you'd read my.mind lmao

[ferchrissakes]

The most dystopian what-if. There’s a reason we keep the Dutch below sea-level, and it’s precisely so they don’t get any ideas like this.

[zeppie_]

As a Dutch person, the map at 3:13 got a good laugh out of me. I'll gladly enlighten all the non-dutch viewers to all the jokes:

_Flevoland2: Flevo-er & Land-er:_ Flevoland is a province in the Netherlands, and this one is a sequel that is "More Flevo, and more Land"

_Onderijssel:_ Overijssel is another province, the name translating to "Over (the) IJssel (river)". This new region is named "Under (the) IJssel"

_New-Rotterdam:_ New York used to be called New-Amsterdam, so another "new-something" city in the newly formed american continent is fitting

_Laag Utrecht:_ Directly translates to "Low Utrecht". Utrecht is another province, and this place is low on the hemisphere. Laag Utrecht!

_New-Amsterdam 2.0:_ After shamelessly taking the name New-Amsterdam away from us, we're back for revenge

_West-Zwolle:_ Zwolle is a province, and it's on the western hemisphere

_Velserpants:_ I didn't even know this, but Velserbroek is a town in the Netherlands, which directly translates to "Velser pants", hence the name

The "something-huizen" is a common naming convention for dutch towns for some reason. These literally translate to "Two houses" "Three houses" "Four houses" and "Six houses". That's it, there's just a bunch of houses

_Actually freezing Friesland:_ Friesland is another Dutch province, the name translating to "Freeze land" or "Land where it freezes". The joke being that because it's so far north it actually freezes there like the name implies

_West-Holland:_ North Holland and South Holland are actual provinces, so obviously we need a new West Holland to the west

_Megatexel:_ Texel is one of the islands in the Wadden Sea, so this kinda-peninsula is lovingly named Megatexel because of how big it is

_Super-Terschelling:_ Terschelling is another island in the Wadden Sea, but this time more super

_South Limburg:_ Limburg is our most southern province, so naming the antarctic south limburg is pretty funny

_Alphen-aan-de-Noordzee:_ We have this city called Alphen aan den Rijn, which translates to "Alphen next to the Rhine". This new place is not next to the Rhine, but next to the North Sea instead

_Northest Brabant, South-South-Brabant, Souther Brabant, Southest Brabant:_ We have two provinces called North Brabant, so the empire of Brabant has expanded further to the north and south

_Vlieland 2:_ We have an island called Vlieland. This is the newly improved version.

_New Urk:_ Urk is notorious as the Alabama of the Netherlands, so this is the sequel that nobody asked for

_Roelofarendsveen-veen:_ Roelofarendsveen is a city in the Netherlands. "Veen" means peat or bog, so it's literally "Roelof Arend's bog". This new region is "Roelof Arend's bog's bog".

_East-Holland:_ Another holland to add to the collection

_Hoverveen:_ Hogeveen is a city, translating to "High bog" (we got a lot of bogs here). This one is the impressive "Higher bog".

_New-New-Zeeland:_ Already kind of explained in the video. Zeeland is a province in the Netherlands, and New Zealand is named after that province.

_East-Haarlem:_ Haarlem is one of the big cities in the Netherlands, this one is just to the east

_Apeldoornië:_ This is a joke on Aapeldoorn, but it's made to sound like a nation. A rough translation would be "Aapeldoornia"

_Groot-Groningen:_ Groningen is one of our provinces, this one is just a little bigger

[Eliam]

Note that, as the seal level decrease, the atmosphere lowers too, so when the water level is at -5km, the ancient continents are vast plateau very high in the atmosphere and the air is dry and hard to breath.

[ripopol]

as a dutchman, i just want to apreciate the map at the end.

[spingleboygle]

the ocean: actively draining
the dutch: hippity hoppity, this land is our property

[leffeup]

New urk is the most terrifying concept i have ever seen. We do not need more urk. Some would even argue we need less urk

[AntiVectorTV]

Ooh, I'm exited for Part 2, "What if you flooded Mars?".

[RadioactiveLobster]

The smell of the dying and rotting stuff from the now exposed ocean floor would be so incomprehensibly bad that I'm not even sure there are words to describe it.

[codeviper]

I've been following the "What If?" blog since Middle School, and now I'm an adult and this is the first time I'm hearing his voice

[Syrion]

As a Dutchy myself, I couldn't stop giggling and lauging throughout the entire episode, unable to hold it all in at the very end, with places like Velserpants (if you know, you know) and Super-Terschilling! Keep up the amazing content, XKCD!!

[Anon]

This is actually a plot point in Half Life 2. The Combine opened a dimensional portal in the ocean to steal all Earth's water to bring back to their home universe and that's why you can see so many ships lying around on the ground in the coastal areas.

[NathanAM]

3:12
Dutch: you'd be in good hands
Indonesian: *flashback

[johanmolendijk]

That last image had me in stitches. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a windmill to build in New New New Zeeland.

[micboyyaboy]

I love your videos so much! The great editing, the little easter eggs, the sound design just being you guys making sounds with your mouths, and especially the consequences nobody ever thought of but you.
Thanks for making!