global warming floads myth!!?

Question

Time and time again they tell us here in the south UK wil be floaded due to global warming melting the ice increasing the sea level but......
Well I just went to drink my glass of water that I had added plenty of ice, (nearly half the glass) imagine how I felt 'cause I had forgotten about it and that all the ice had melted. My vision of water everywhere due to the massive increase in drinks level due the the melting ice
Imagine my surprise to find the level had actually decreased and there was no water spilling over the edge of the glass onto the table. Phew!! lucky those scientist have got it all wrong again!!

Try this experiment yourself and post the results

Answer 1

How long was it setting there? Until the ice melted? Longer?

Answer 2

Yup...water expands when frozen.
To flood all of the low lying land surely we would have to create more water ?
I know only a little about physics etc... but surely all the water on the planet is locked up in the sea, the ice caps, rivers, lakes, mountain top snow fields and clouds ?
I can see that weather patterns can change due to global warming and the like and winds will blow the clouds to different places in different quantities. Surely that just re-distributes the water we already have ?
Plus, all the land under the ice will rise, as we (UK) are told that after the `ice age` we are still rising in the north west and sinking in the south east. Again, just a re-adjustment of the land mass.

I am bemused by the subject. Am I missing something ?

Maybe I am even thicker than most people think I am !

Oh, as an aside, wasn`t Greenland called Vinland by the Norsemen, because they grew vines on it or is that just `urban (rural) myth` ?
If so this global warming thing is nothing new is it ?

I am confused...

Answer 3

Actually the scientists are right.

You experiment actually modeled sea ice, such as is found in the Artic regions. Water is unusual because it actually expands when it cools to 4 degrees celsius and ice takes up more volume than an equivalent amount of water. Ice in a glass of water raises the water level. But when the ice melts, because the water that comprises it actually occupies a smaller volume as a liquid, it looks as if the water level has decreased.

A lot of the artic ice is like ice in a glass of water, actually floating in sea water so it may a smaller contribution to sea level rise if it all melts.

However ice that is on land masses such the antartic and greenland ice sheets is a differenct story. If you leave ice to melt on its own in a bowl and then add the water you get to a glass of water, the water level in the glass will rise. The ice sheets are like this. Because all the ice is on land, when it melts the water will enter the sea and gradually raise sea levels.

Also some of the sea level rise will be due to thermal expansion of the seas i.e. as the earth warms, the sea warms and the water will expand. This is not a contridiction of what I said earlier. Like many other substances water will expand when heated. However one of the unusual properties of water is that it will begin to expand once it cools to 4 degrees celsius.

Answer 4

you only experimented with just a glass of water and a few pieces of ice granting there was no spillage or there was no changes in the original volume of water in your drinking glass but the global warming would be quite different story bcoz when all the ice on earth melts the sea water will rise by 18 meters enough to submerge all the low lying areas in all the continents

Answer 5

I think that you have missed the point here. Yes, water expands as it freezes, so sea ice melting will potentially reduce sea levels, however sea ice is mainly found in the north and there isn't that much of it. The vast majority of ice is found on land, the Greenland Ice Cap, Antartica etc. When this lot melts you'd better be ready with your water wings!

Answer 6

Yes, the ice that is currently floating on the sea wont raise sea levels if it melts. But most of the ice is found on the land in Greenland and Antarctica. If this melts and runs into the sea, the sea level will rise. It would be like added extra ice cubes to your drink (after they had melted of course).

Answer 7

Bear in mind that the ice on the polar ice caps is a hell of a lot more dense then the ice in your glass, and that there is trillions of tonnes of it at both end of the globe. Could that be enough to sink the south of England? Sure. But before you go start filling in sandbags just in case, remember that despite what you may of seen in The Day After Tomorrow, this is a process that would take hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Answer 8

There were many differences between that experiment, and the causes global warming has all over the earth. Global warming does exist, and I hate people who presist on saying that it's all a myth, and all the factories and cars aren't doing any harm to the atmosphere! Ya right! I don't know, if the water level will rise, but theyr'e are many other horrible consequences for not taking care of this earth.

Answer 9

I think a more immediate point, aside from discussion of expansion, is this:

Your glass was about half occupied by ice, hence the volume of the glass available to be filled by water was about half the total.

When the ice melted, all that volume became available. Water from the ice added to that in the glass, but the overall level dropped because the rise in water volume was more than countebalanced by the increase in available volume in the glass.

Global warming is here; flooding is on its way...it's about time governments started thinking about new ways of building to cope with this.

Answer 10

Your glass has water and ice in it. The ice melts, yet the glass does not overflow. Get some more ice, put it in another glass and let it melt, now pour all of it into your glass. Did it overflow?

There is ice on mountains, ice covering Greenland (not in the ocean...it's above sea level), there is ice covering Antarctica (above sea level), there is ice covering the Arctic (above sea level). Global warming will cause this ice to melt and flow into the oceans, adding extra water that will cause the sea level to rise....The same as melting extra ice in another glass and pouring it into the first glass already filled with water and ice.

Answer 11

When ice melts, the volume in North pole and south pole will be reduced and be in the world where hot environment is around.
In your glass the water level increases when the ice melts but the quantity is still the same without ice.