What if Earth Suddenly Becomes Extremely Cold to Live In?

The Earth has not experienced an Ice Age in many generations, but what if it does so again?

What if you wake up on an ordinary day and start shivering? You try to keep warm by wrapping yourself in the blanket, but it’s useless. Even your heater will not be able to raise the temperature in your room. Finally, you check outside your window to see what makes you so cold. Is it raining outside, or has winter arrived earlier than usual this year? However, you’re taken aback as soon as you go to your window because your windows have become iced over!

You can’t open your window because it’s been smashed by the snow. Then you try to go outdoors and see what the weather is like.

After a lot of work, you eventually open your door and are stunned to discover everything blanketed in snow. Everything around you is entirely blanketed in snow, from trees to houses. It’s as though the whole world has gone white. What if the world would get so cold that it would be impossible to live in, causing a new ice age?

How will we humans be able to survive in such a situation? What new technologies would we embrace to make it through such a situation? How will we organize our lives in the next ice age? How much will we have to change our way of life to adapt to these new circumstances? What will our current world look like then?

Let’s see if we can come up with answers to these questions.

What Is Ice Age, And How Does It Happen?

An ice age is when large sheets of ice cover everything, permanently changing the Earth. It is responsible for raising and lowering sea levels and changing the layouts of the continents. It causes the temperature around the world to drop to dangerously low levels.

The quantity of sunlight that strikes different sections of the Earth’s surface varies as it wobbles on its axis, and its tilt changes as it rotates. Due to these wobbles and the planet’s elliptical orbit, summer temperatures change depending on whether the summer solstice occurs when Earth is closer or farther from the sun. These variables converge every 100,000 years, resulting in substantially colder circumstances than in the last millennia.

The ice age can also be caused by losing essential greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide and their replacement with less potent greenhouse gases.

How Would The World’s Topography Look Like In The New Ice Age?

The entire surface area of the world would begin to change as soon as the ice age began. The ocean’s entire surface would be frozen solid. Large ice sheets would form in rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water. Snow would now blanket even the largest deserts, replacing the sand, and we’d be bombarded by storms regularly.

There would still be bright days, but the sun would be unable to keep the world as warm as it is now. Its heat rays would have a lower intensity. As a result, it would not affect melting snow or raise the temperature. It would be freezing as the temperature would plummet to a dangerously low level.

People who already live in cold climates will gradually begin to feel the effects of the ice age. People who already live in cold climates would not be much affected because they are used to living in cold conditions. On the other hand, the climate during the Ice Age would be much colder than it is in snowy places today.

The repercussions of a new ice age would be terrible for those accustomed to living in hot climates. The new ice age would have the most significant impact on these places. People would suffer significantly at first, and there would be a significant population loss as people could not acclimate to the new climate. The survival of the fittest principle would apply here. Later, when the necessary technologies for survival in the next ice age are established, it will significantly reduce the population loss. As a result, the entire Earth would appear to be a white ball from space.

The Arrival Of The New Ice Age And The World

The start of the next ice age would have severe consequences for the entire planet. The ice age’s harmful consequences would first destroy the entire Earth.

There will be a significant population decline. It would severely harm the global economy, and many companies would suffer. On the other hand, some enterprises will thrive during the coming cold age. These enterprises make snow removal equipment, skating shoes, thick jackets, heaters, and other similar items.

It would destroy the agricultural business as a whole. Economies in countries where agriculture employs most of the population would suffer a significant setback. Food scarcity would be acute all around the world.

Both developed and developing countries would bear the brunt of the consequences. Even if rich countries used cutting-edge technology to improve things, poor and developing countries would have no chance.

International organizations would play a key role in attempting to bring the world’s conditions under control. International and non-governmental organizations, as well as philanthropists from all over the world, would play an essential role in supporting countries in dealing with the issues faced by the new ice age. They would send financial assistance, food, and other fundamental necessities to the needy countries. Overall, a new ice age would be terrible for modern humanity.

Survival And Technology

Technology will be crucial to keeping people alive when the next ice age comes. New houses would be built using technologies in which the outside environmental circumstances would not interfere.

The heating systems in these houses would be so advanced that they would easily beat the cold outside. Humans would also want to live in underground buildings because it would cover the entire region of the Earth in snow. The rooftops of these underground residences would be completely insulated, ensuring that the cold outside does not influence the inside.

Transportation would be complicated because all the roads would be covered in snow. The vehicles on the road today would be useless. Instead, automobile manufacturers will focus on creating vehicles performing well in the snow. These cars’ tires would be made so they could quickly run on snow and would be entirely impervious to the snow.

People would create these automobiles to be fully fog-proof and completely evaporate any snow that fell on them. When they come into contact with the snow, all the snow will evaporate into water vapour.

People would primarily use automobiles to travel above-ground on snowy roads. Both underground and above-ground highways would provide transportation. We would employ machines and equipment to help lessen the amount of snowfall. Machines that operate as snow vacuum cleaners would be created. These machines would turn snow that fell on them immediately into water vapour, which they would then release into the air.

We would do most of the work from the comfort of one’s homes. It would become the norm to work from home. New technologies would be developed to improve existing internet service technologies and to enable these technologies to function safely even in freezing and wet circumstances. Even for occupations where going to the office is required, people would choose underground offices since they would be far more cost-effective than above-ground offices, which would require a significant investment in high-quality heating and the ability to withstand snow.

We would also make people’s clothes from scientifically engineered textiles that are entirely heat-resistant. People’s jackets, boots, gloves, and caps, among other items, will include heating devices to keep them warm.

However, we should mention that such a planet would be very expensive to live on. Because of the high level of technology used to create virtually all goods and services, the cost of nearly all goods and services would skyrocket, making life in the new Ice Age period exceedingly expensive. Because the lakes and rivers would be frozen, devices that transform snow into purified water would be able to provide clean drinking water. As the groundwater would be entirely frozen, residents would have to buy water from companies that melt and purify snow in large quantities and deliver it to people’s homes for daily usage.

So, if we want to live through this new ice age, we must rethink our society to fit into a completely different environment.

The Ice Age And Vegetation Change 

The ice age would severely impact the vegetation. In dry and hot locations, all plants, trees, and other vegetation would eventually become extinct. It includes all the crops as well. It would destroy all crops as soon as the new ice era began. There will be severe food shortages, and more people will be displaced worldwide due to this. We would make artificial foods over time to keep people alive.

Even if the vegetation found in hot and arid climates became extinct, the vegetation of plants and animals found in snowy places would increase. As a result, the number of pine, cedar, and other trees and plants in snowy regions will increase. Flowers that can grow and survive in extreme freezing temperatures would replace today’s roses, sunflowers, and lilies.

If there is another ice age, all the plants on Earth will change significantly.

Impact Of The New Ice Age On The Animal Population On Earth?

Many creatures will die at the start of the ice age since they cannot survive in such a chilly climate. It would harm both land and aquatic life. But we expect the number of animals and birds that live in colder climates, like penguins, polar bears, and snow leopards, to grow. Some species that are successful in surviving will evolve further to adapt to the new climatic circumstances. As a result, penguins may become as popular as cats and dogs, and people may even begin to adopt them as pets!

Conclusion

It would take a long time for modern humans to adapt to this new and freezing temperature, maybe over a few decades. However, after a hundred years or more, we can expect the following generation and subsequent generations to be well suited to these conditions. Their bodies would be adapted to withstand such freezing. They would no longer be chilly, and the temperature would return to normal.

They would also have devised methods for producing food and water. Furthermore, they would have built the globe in a way that allowed them to survive the new ice age.