What if we teleported the oceans to Mars?

Suppose you did drain earth’s oceans and dumped the water on top of the Curiosity rover, how would Mars change as the water accumulated?

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.

[laalaastl]

Randall's vocal "special effects" are exactly what the print edition was missing.

[irakyl]

The hardest thing about choosing where on a map your castle should be is getting all the material lavaproof, because if it isn't in a volcano why even bother

[kaltenstein]

The "map of online communities" of 2010 is so fascinating to look at 14 years later

[Firebringer]

@2:19 I would absolutely watch a wacky 'The Martian 2' with Matt Damon trying to survive this scenario.

[teleroel]

Maybe you'll win an award with those crinkly coast lines. Slartibartfast wouldn't mind.

[eefmp]

i love the mouth sfx, especially the water draining. it’s so funny.

[TinyDeskEngineer]

Finally, it's time for the New Netherlands.

[prons_gaming]

I love how he says, "There's only one way to find out" as if there was actually a way for us to teleport the majority of earth's water to mars

[stevewithaq]

Okay, the rovers would suffer serious water damage, but more importantly, what would happen to Matt Damon and his potatoes?

[Pabloable]

"There's only one way to find out" in such a casual tone of voice is a truly terrifying way to end a What If? video

[everywhereinnevada]

2:17 randall has reached beyond the confines of Earth and decided to do a map projection for Mars

[Blue-Maned_Hawk]

I quite like that this series operates to expand and update previous entries instead of being a mere regurgitation.

[gavinminion]

0:24 It must have been amazing (or annoying?) to have gone to all the trouble producing this video with the phrase "Almost all the water on Mars is frozen" only to have scientists announce that an underground reservoir of liquid water has been found on mars the day before you release it. It's always wonderful when science updates in real time.

[laalaastl]

Opportunity takes the opportunity to let loose an expletive at 2:42

[thebookwyrm]

This one added some extra ice-related stuff that wasn't in the original article, so that's cool! Glad to see you're adding extra info.

[mimikyoo]

my favorite "What If?" also releasing this on the heels of the news of liquid water on mars is kinda brilliant.

[Rkcuddles]

Really think the water vapor plus its ability to hold on to heat would set off atmospheric weather phenomena that might just keep going in unpredictable directions

[charlespeterson]

_"There's only one way to find out"_
No, there is another way - drain all of *Europa's* water on to Mars. That also brings things much closer so we don't have to go all the way to Jupiter to find out what's happening under Europa's ice.

[Howlflame]

One of the best questions my mom has ever gotten as a 1st grade teacher is this: "If an earthquake, a volcano, and a tsunami all happened at the same time, _would a bat survive?"_

[mikecronis]

I suspect in-time, since there's no magnetosphere to speak-of, the water would create a cometary-like tail as well as the Sun blasts it off slowly, perhaps making a tiny unstable ring system.