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Question: Ice Caps & Sea Levels

A

Anonymous

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If I take a milk bottle and freeze it. The milk will split the bottle or some milk will come out of the top. This is becuase when a liquid is frozen it ocupies more space (area) than when it is a liquid,

Agree??

Ok, next step.

If I take a pint glass with some ice in it, fill it with water and let the ice melt, the water level will be lower once the ice has melted. (becuase the ice takes up more area / volume and displaces more space than the equivilent in water would)

Ok you still with me yes???


Heres the question.

Why do people say that when the ice caps melt (global warming etc) we will get flodded???

These bits of ice are floating in the sea ? Yes ? They are displacing more than there own size would be if they melted ? No??

Im confused,
 
I think (and I could be wrong!) that, since the Antarctic ice cap sits mainly on land, the introduction of that volume of water into the seas could be catastrophic...
 
i thought there was more ice than land etc, but research proves me wrong.
 
A good chunk of the ice at the south pole is sitting on land. The ice at the north pole however is not. If all of the ice on the planet were to melt, the ocean level would probably either remain about the same, or drop slightly. If just the ice at the south pole were to melt it would probably rise.

The water level is not the main problem though. All of the fresh water released into the ocean in a short amount of time would change the salinity level of the ocean. This would cause two things to happen:

1) Kill off a large amount of plankton, and hence stuff that needs to eat it.

2) Change the thermal convections in the water so that the warm water does not sink as far down as it does now. This would change many of the ocean currents and also the weather.
 
Yep, it is because that the south pole ice is on land. But if you melted the north pole ic nothing would happen. Except for the salinity thing.
 
If the whole Arctic ice sheet melted there would be a very small rise in sea level since some of the ice rests across the Canadian northern territories, Alaska and the high Nordics and Siberia, not to mention Greenland. It wouldn't be as day spoiling as the Antarctic Icesheet going, but it would have an effect. Also, in lower latitudes on the north, wouldn't the permafrost start giving up its stored water to rivers, which (mostly) end up at the sea?

H
 
The permafrost thing is quite important actually- I think there is an absolute shedload of water locked up in that.

The ocean currents would have some pretty drastic effects too- if the gulf stream goes Britain gets a whole lot more cold.
 
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