What If Earth Reached Boiling Point for 5 Seconds?

Get ready for an intense encounter with scorching temperatures and the immediate demise of all organisms. Brace yourself as we crank up the heat and bring the entire planet to a boiling point for a mere five seconds. Picture an apocalyptic heatwave sweeping across the environment, leaving no living thing on Earth unscathed. Would you be destined to explode from within? This is "What If," and here's what would unfold if the Earth reached its boiling point for a brief five-second episode.

While you may grumble about enduring sweltering summer heat, the average temperature on Earth hovers around a mild 13.9 degrees Celsius. This pales in comparison to the hottest regions on the planet, such as China's flaming mountains or Iran's scorching Lut Desert, where land temperatures have been recorded as high as 70 degrees Celsius. Yet even that extreme heat is still significantly lower than the boiling temperature of a cup of piping hot tea, which sits at 100 degrees Celsius.

When water reaches its boiling point, it undergoes a transformation from liquid to vapor. With approximately 71% of the Earth's surface covered in water, imagine feeling trapped inside a colossal kettle. If temperatures were to suddenly spike, you might assume everything would go up in flames. However, that wouldn't be an immediate concern. Wood, for instance, ignites at around 300 degrees Celsius. As for the notion of the oceans boiling away, fear not, as the boiling point is influenced by pressure. The deeper you descend into the ocean, the higher the pressure, raising the boiling temperature. Even at just 10 meters below the water's surface, the boiling point increases to approximately 120 degrees Celsius.

While not all the water in Earth's oceans would evaporate, shallow waters teeming with life would experience a boiling demise for most organisms, both flora and fauna. Only the resilient thermophiles—microorganisms that thrive in temperatures of up to 108 degrees Celsius—might emerge unscathed from this scalding event. Unfortunately, you wouldn't fare well during these tumultuous five seconds either. The steam would scorch your skin and cause significant harm to your eyes. Simply inhaling during this period could lead to severe burns in the mucous membranes of your mouth, nose, and throat. If these burns were deep enough to damage tissues, you could develop rhabdomyolysis, a condition that could result in lasting harm to your heart, kidneys, or even lead to death.

But that's not the worst of it. Your body contains substantial amounts of water—roughly 60% of your composition. If this water were to transform into steam, your body's volume would suddenly expand by a staggering 1600 times. Both you and anything else containing water would simply explode from within, turning into macabre steam bombs. However, perhaps you would consider yourself fortunate, as five seconds wouldn't be long enough for detonation. Nevertheless, life following this catastrophic heatwave would not swiftly return to normal. Immediately after the five-second ordeal, global temperatures would plummet dramatically, causing the water vapor to revert back to liquid form. Brace yourself for intense flash floods and extreme weather events.

The reversal from steam to water would, in turn, elevate temperatures in the surrounding environment. This could expedite the melting of polar ice caps and glaciers, causing a rapid rise in sea levels by approximately 70 meters. Consequently, even though the Earth would have boiled for a mere moment—equivalent to the time it takes for a big yawn—the aftermath would lead to circumstances where major cities worldwide could be submerged and rendered uninhabitable. Millions of lives could be lost in this catastrophic aftermath, either as a result of the flooding or the earlier transformation into spontaneous steam bombs.

Okay, let's shift gears and cool things down for another five-second scenario. How about dropping the temperature all the way to absolute zero? Well, that's a tale for another captivating "What If" episode.