What would an Antarctica without ice look like compared to other continents?
Lets suppose that Antarctica at some point lost most of its ice (due to global warming or some other plausible reason) and now most of its bedrock surface is exposed.
Compared to other continents, how would Antarctica look like? Could the land be cultivated to grow crops? what potential resources could be mined from there? and lastly, would humans be able to develop a sustainable society on there like they have done on other continents?
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A 3D map showing the topography of the area was created by NASA and the British Antarctic Survey:
This is what the continent would look like if you instantly removed all the ice and snow. A map indicating elevation in color was created by the same team (from here) :
Note that it's far from flat. There are quite a lot of mountains, which would not make any large-scale utilization easy.
This latter picture shows just how and where land would first be flooded if the ice caps melted and the excess water stayed there.
If all the ice melted, the other continents would also change in shape, as National Geographic shows.
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