What would happen if all creatures returned to the oceans?

I don’t know about the sea levels but a lot of animals would drown.

I figure the water displacement would be massive – probably drowning the coastal cities.

The cost of real estate on dry land would plummit – but who could tell?

Prince Namor of Atlantis would be pissed about all the interlopers.

And my wife would drown as she can’t swim.

I can I watch?

A lot of drowned bodies.

The cruise lines would make a fortune.

Well, the oceans cover 70.8% of Earth. I doubt it would rise that much at all. I would be surprised if it would rise over a centimeter.

The water would become awfully crowded, and the sharks would be so fat, they would become meek as pussycats.

We’d all have some great calypso music to dance to:

“Under the sea,
Under the sea…”

Dare I say it… Methinks it would be a sink or swim situation!

Given the world population, I’m sure someone could create a range of estimates for the volume of humanity, thus we could determine how much humans would cause the oceans to rise. Then we could identify those animals who are massive enough (either in size or population) to cause a significant impact on the water levels, and include them in the calculation.

Or, we could approach this the other way: find out how much volume it would take to displace the oceans some amount (say to cause coastal flooding in America), and do a quick calculation to see if the volume of humanity is a large or small portion of this. If, for instance, all of humanity would only cause a 1% increase in volume, I think it’s fair to conclude that with all other lifeforms on Earth considered as well, the increase would still be small and wouldn’t be enough to cause significant flooding.

i think we’ve all seen the movie Waterworld, and know exactly what would happen: terrible overbudgeting and urine drinking.

@eponymoushipster- Urine drinking goes on now.
The world’s insects outweigh all other animals combined, although I don’t know about their volume.
@johnpowell- I know that the water volume on Earth is enormous but i think you underestimate just how many creatures there are on this planet.

Ok you threw down the gauntlet- I’ll pick it up. It’s another Fermi question -my favorite type.
Here are my assumptions and thought process: 6 billion people. Average mass 60kg . density 1.06, We’re basically sacks of salt water. Volume of all humanity = 3.4 E11 liters = 3.4 E 8 m3 = 339 km3
Now for the area: km was defined as 1/10000 distance from north pole to equator. Circumference 40,000km therefore Surface area is = 510,000,000 km2
Water is 71% = 362,000,000 km2
Put all humanity in a blender and squeeze it out over the water evenly and you get 339/362,000,000 or .938 mm.
Let’s use the ratio 3:1 for other life vs. human in aggregate. 3 x .938mm
Therefore the ocean would rise….. 4mm
OK, my number’s out there. Anyone dis/agree?

Wikipedia gives the biomass of ants alone as between 900 million and 9 trillion tons, humans as 100 million tons, and domestic animals as 700 million.

If we assume their average density to be roughly that of water, 1 ton of water has a volume of about 1 cubic meter, so all of the above would occupy about 10,700,000,000 cubic meters of volume, or 10,700 cubic kilometers. The Antarctic ice sheet alone releases about 2,000–3,000 cubic kilometers of water into the oceans annually

@Lupin- Why squeeze out all the water and not count it? Doesn’t it have volume?
Besides, in my magic scenario life goes on for the creatures mentioned. And mass isn’t important here. The volume is what’s important, and that would likely take up much more than just 4mm, I would think.

Haha, and everybody HATED Water World. i always knew it would come true

I was not squeezing out the water I counted it. Just making a little humor. I made us all flat by putting us in a blender and pouring it on the surface area of the ocean. Archimedes’ rule holds whether we are flat as a pancake or in a shape. Eureka. Let’s see if Harp gets a similar answer using the different approach. I know that our density even when we are “sucking air” is about 1.0. We barely float in water as does most life so I gave them all a density of 1.06 since there are electrolytes mixed in. I might have underestimated on the magnitude of other life. Although since Remington invented the CBee22, human life outweighs other in my neighborhood. ;-)
OK lets call ants 10x human and domestic animals 7x human so that moves the number up to 18mm. But that’s the beauty of a Fermi question.

It is as evolution happens:
You adapt or you die.

Humans could likely set up shop underwater with our technology for a short time but that wouldn’t be sustainable.

We’d have to grow gills!

Well, I’m on Aptos Beach (near Santa Cruz) as I fluther this. I’ll get my fat ass off this beach chair in a minute and see how much of an impact I’ll make in the Pacific, then report back.

The plants would die without anything rotting to munch on.

@AstroChuck sure, urine drinking goes on. but is it famous people urine?

@Astro: if your ass is that big just lay on the beach and wait for someone to push the beached whale back in.

Now there’s a thought. How much bigger would the beach get if all the sea creatures came out onto the land?

Never made it all the way in the water. It started getting windy and a little too chilly for me. And it’s a good thing for everyone. I wouldn’t want to start any tsunamis.

Good question, Pete.

Oh no! Don’t get me started!!!

You could use the Empire State Building as a high dive platform. Now that’s deep. (In more ways than one)

I’d like to take another crack at this, because I have new data and my math was seriously screwed up on my previous answer.

I couldn’t find a precise figure for total terrestrial animal biomass, but I did find that domestic animals constitute an estimated 20%, so using the figure of 700 million tons of domestic animals, that gives a total biomass of 3.5 billion tons. Again assuming that the average density of all that animal stuff is about the same as water (1 cubic meter H2O =1 ton), that would equal only 3.5 cubic kilometers of volume (1 cubic kilometer= 1 billion cubic meters).

So again considering that the Antarctic ice cap contributes a couple of thousand cubic kilometers to the oceans each year, it looks like all us landlubbers would barely make a splash.

@Harp- Still, the density would not be the same as water. We take up much more volume than that.

It would be a disaster.. I’d never be able to find a good cheeseburger.

@AstroChuck The specific gravity of the human body is between .95 and .97, meaning that it is only very slightly less dense than water (specific gravity of fresh water is 1). The only component of the human body with a specific gravity less than 1 , in fact, is fat; protein and bone are both denser than water.

Insects have a lower specific gravity, but only because of the hollow tubes of their repiratory systems. Presumably these would get filled with water, though, so that factor would be negated.

Birds are, I think about the only animal that would be considerably less dense than water.

@Harp- We are talking volume here, not density. Salt water weighs 64 lbs. per cubic food. I’m pretty certain that most animal life have a much lower weight per C.F. than that.

@AstroChuck Yes, but we need the density to to convert the weights to volume. We can find estimates of the weights for animal biomass, so the density allows us to approximate the volume.

Why would most other animals be less dense than we are? I doubt most are fatter, and the other main constituents are all denser than fresh water. I use fresh water as the reference because it converts neatly into a volume equivalent (1 cubic meter per ton) and it’s very close to our own density.

Consider too that if all this animal matter were less dense than the ocean water, that wouldn’t mean that sea levels would rise all the more, because it would be impossible to submerge all of that volume. A portion of it would remain above sea level, not contributing to the ocean’s volume.

I figure water is a good average. Birds would be much lighter but other crtiters are pretty close. Even if they are lighter, they will float and only displace what they weigh.
Now we are supposed to go running through the streets of Syracuse naked.

From Wikipedia: It is most famously attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes; he reportedly proclaimed, “Eureka!” when he stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose – he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. This meant that the volume of irregular objects could be calculated with precision, a previously intractable problem.

I am bookmarking this thread. Occasionally, someone asks, “Can AstroChuck ever be serious?” I can now provide an example.

Btw, I’m assuming the creatures are staying under the surface, so floating wouldn’t be an issue.

Then I feel reasonably confident that the density of fresh water would be a good starting point for the weight-to-volume conversion. The error would be within a few percentage points at most.

So what have we learned here? No substancial rise in sea level, correct?

The figurative drop in a bucket.

I’ll stick with 18 mm.

Harp, your nerdiness just made me fall in love with you.

Asmonet, you nerd lover, you.

:D

Seriously, I have an internet crush on every dude in his family. So far.

Nerds are hot.

How ironic that we nerds draw all the hot babes, then haven’t the faintest idea how to proceed from there. Nature’s way of limiting the nerd population, I guess. Perhaps it’s for the best

So, I should throw the nerdboys up against the nearest wall and have my way with them, yes?

<lines up against nearest wall>

That sounds like fun.

Take a number, boys.

1

2

π

∞

Sorry fellas, she won’t want anyone else until she is done with me : P

@fireside Not so fast, she’s still extending my decimal places

@Harp – lol

Harp is first now.
But Petey gets an extra fifteen minutes for being my first my fluther add.

What else could a girl do when presented with Pi?
Although, ∞ is a damn good counterattack…

<looks dejected>

Hey. What happened to my thread.

Um, we’re all going to asmonet’s ocean now.
if your wife approves, you can take a number too, Chuck.

Im in ur threadz, stealin ur contributorz.

Steal me! Steal me!

Take a number, sweetheart. ;)

@AstroChuck @Harp I was at the Buffalo Museum of Science yesterday and saw a display that compared animal life to plants and microbes by mass for our plante.
The ratio by mass:
Microbes including mirobial mats 90%
Plant life 9%
Animal 1%
This does not answer the question (I’m still sticking with my 18mm) but it interesting. I had no idea microbes made up such a large portion of life on earth.

@Lupin: Lurve for remembering/recording.

Did you see the movie Waterworld?