So, if 90% of the world's icecaps are underwater, how can the sea levels raise 20 feet after displacement?

Question

Ice maelting in a glass full of water doesn't raise the water level, how can the melting of polar caps raise it 20 feet? Doesn't displacement play a big factor here?

Answer 1

Yes, you are excluding all ice on land, which is the definition of the ice age we are currently in.

Also, water expands thermally with heating, and though it is small, it makes a difference over the size of an ocean.

By the way, global warming is a real, human-caused phenomenon. See links below to see what the entire scientific community agrees on. There has never been an article published in a peer-reviewed journal discrediting this data and human's impact.

Answer 2

90% of an iceberg is underwater. The ice cap is not.

An ice cap is a dome-shaped water ice mass that covers less than 50,000 km² of land area (usually covering a highland area). Masses of ice covering more than 50,000 km² are termed an ice sheet.

Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e. they will lie over the top of mountains) but their dome is usually centred around the highest point of a massif. Ice flows away from this high point (the ice divide) towards the ice cap's periphery.

Ice whatever, melting is a major concern. As glaciers retreat, water levels will rise. Melting ice DOES raise the water level just a little. In a solid state, water's molecules are piled like bricks (:::::). In a liquid state, the molecules are spread out (..........).

Think of it like a muscle contracted (ice stage) and then extended (liquid stage). No mass is gained or lost, just a matter of distribution.

Answer 3

Difference is that the ice caps also capture small pockets of air of which will be released after it has melted. These pockets of air make the volume of water displaced less than the volume of water that will increase due to melting.

Answer 4

Well, what's over the water is what can raise the water level, and there's still a lot of that (Antarctica and ice caps in the Arctic circle), an that is what can raise the water level).

Answer 5

That only holds for ice floating in water. There is supposed to be a lot of ice above sea level on land masses, like Antarctica, Greenland, Alaska, Siberia, etc. I'm not convinced that global warming is due to man made causes, though. Please refer to my best answer on this topic, about three months ago. (it was long and I don't feel like typing it again, but I would like to share it with you.)

Answer 6

This is why you are a fire fighter,not a physicist...tom science