What If it Rained Every Day for a Year?

flooding devastation and disease what could all these awful things have in common rain and lots of it we're not talking april showers here so imagine a downpour lasting not for a few hours or even days instead imagine 365 days of non-stop rain how would that rain affect the earth how would it affect your health and could it even affect how we breathe this is what if and here's what would happen if it rained every day for a year rain is vital for life on earth the plants and animals need it we need it too for drinking water and to grow crops but too much of a good thing can tip the balance and climate data shows that the amount of torrential rain is increasing a study from the university of saskatchewan found that worldwide between 2004 and 2013 there were seven percent more extreme bouts of heavy rain and in europe and asia extreme rains increased by 8.6 and from 1980 to 2009 rain caused floods that killed more than half a million people so if it were to rain non-stop for a year it could have serious consequences for everything on earth but what's causing this increase in torrential rains have you ever wondered how much water is up in the sky well if all the water in the atmosphere suddenly fell to earth it would cover the entire surface and be two and a half centimeters deep that would be 37 and a half million billion gallons of water vapor falling on our planet now imagine that rain is constantly falling in a never-ending downpour of epic proportions well we know it's going to flood but just how bad would it get well if you like going to the beach or tropical islands the daily rains could ruin your holidays islands would be affected first they'd be lost to the sea pretty quickly and places like the netherlands and europe would face dire consequences as the water level rises there's a good chance that they would be completely underwater the usual protocol during a flood is to go to higher ground it's safer than low-lying areas but there's a major issue if you go higher up too water avalanches all that rain could cause landslides mudslides and waterfalls so those areas would not exactly be safe either the thing is the initial flooding and mountain perils would just be the start of our problems have you thought about how all that rain might affect your health it might be easy to overlook your physical and mental well-being if never-ending rain is pouring down outside but health-wise it's a serious problem to deal with you might think that there would be plenty of water to drink but we'd have to collect that water carefully it would be easy for our reservoirs and water systems to be flooded with pollutants from waste and debris and that would cause disease to spread rapidly and don't forget there ain't no sunshine when it rains hard we all need vitamin d and the easiest way to get it is from sunlight but if it rains all day every day i guess we'll just need to buy vitamins instead and people could start suffering from depression due to the lack of sunlight it's a real downer so there will be flooding and disease but i bet you didn't even think what would happen to the air did you another consequence of the persistent rain would be a severe lack of oxygen for us to breathe healthy soil contains oxygen but with so much water in it there would be much less room for oxygen water erosion would expose roots and make trees and plants unstable and to top it all off our crops would be wiped out they'd drown and that could be the nail in the coffin for humanity so if the starvation doesn't get you the low oxygen levels probably will yeah it's not a great forecast if it rains every day for a year but if it happens is there anything we could do well there are places on earth that get a huge amount of rain let's take a look at the wettest place on earth it's a state in india called meghalaya especially the town of mousenram its lush green rainforests help convert carbon dioxide back into breathable oxygen each year it receives a staggering 12 meters of rainfall and people have managed to thrive there for hundreds of years one of their most ingenious solutions is building living bridges they're made from the rubber trees in the rain forest once constructed they can live for 500 years or longer so there is hope for us in such a sudden scenario but interestingly and maybe sadly mega leia and other super wet areas are drying out and it looks like it's being caused by global warming but hold on global warming is supposed to be causing more rain right unfortunately climate change is a complex issue it's a vicious cycle of mistreating our planet and environmental issues we don't fully understand but we do know that global warming is affecting our world in various ways in the case of meghalaya and many other places around the world we know that climate change is causing droughts monsoons are still happening but with less rainfall and there's deforestation we now know that it can affect weather patterns locally and globally so if it rained every day for a year even though it's improbable there's something we can learn from all this we live in a beautiful world with all its animals and plants but we could be changing our world in ways that could spiral out of our control and hey i wouldn't want that how about you it gets me thinking if we got all that rain what would happen to our power systems what if earth lost power for seven days well that's a story for another what if

Channel: What If

Views: 724,056

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, mysteries, what if earth, hypothetical, flooding, devastation, disease, rain, april showers, downpour, 365 days, earth, health, breathe, growing crops, torrential rain, torrential downpour, heavy rain, weather, climate change, climate, atmosphere, netherlands, higher ground, landslide, mudslide, mudslides, waterfall, lack of oxygen, oxygen, water erosion, destroyed crops, meteorology, meghalaya, wettest place on earth, mawsynram

Id: qBaY0U_Waas

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 19 2021