When the icebergs melt, will the sea level really rise?

Question

Icebergs as I believe are large floating blocks of ice. When they melt people and scientists believe that the sea levels will rise but will they? What about water displacement? EG: When I fill a glass with ice and water and wait for the ice cubes to melt, the water level stays the same, so why would this not happen with icebergs?

Answer 1

Doesn't weight play a part in this? EG: When you climb into a bath the water level rises, say you was the iceberg, your weight has already caused the level to raise so even if you was to melt the level would stay the same. Whether solid or melted the weight of the contents inside the bath would still be the same. This does not apply to glaciers on land though, just icebergs that are on the surface of the sea etc

Answer 2

This depends on how you look at things! When you fill your glass do you make room for the ice cubes? In which case even if they melt it will fill the glass to the top anyway as you have accounted for the displaced the amount of ice when you first filled it. Its pretty much the same principle for the icecaps. The world has a fixed amount of water and goes through a series of cycles of warming and cooling. When the last (cooling) ice age hit a lot of the water was trapped in the form of ice in either poles of the hemisphere. Therefore land was exposed and bridged a lot of the gaps betweens islands (which were once filled with water) and hence why certain organisms were allowed to cross from country to country and settlements started to appear around the newly-forming coastlines. In the present climate the ice is melting (heating) and therefore these land bridges are diminishing as the trapped water in the ice return as water to the ocean. A lot of land has been lost through this way and a lot of civilisation has also been lost through tragic breach of sea defences. Holland is in dire need as they are presently underwater (according to relative sea level) and are only dry due to their extremely good sea defences.
In Antarctica there is a ice sheet which is hanging in the balance and is swiftly melting as we speak. The size of this sheet is so large that if it broke and shattered into the ocean it could raise the sea level by almost 0.3m overnight. Now is might not seem much but it can almost certainly destory sea defences world wide (see link below).
Its a real phenomenon and needs to be seriously investigated
Hope this answers your question!

Answer 3

Yes ice is less dense than the cold water surrounding it which is why it floats. When an iceberg melts it increases in density and takes up the same volume as the water it displaced so yes the water level does not rise.

The calculations of water level rise are based on melting of ice on land for example in Antarctica or Greenland.

Answer 4

When icebergs melt they dispense the same amount of water equal to the weight of the berg because they are floating, so no, not when icebergs melt, however if glaziers melt, the planet Will have little land mass left. You can prove this with a glass of water, fill it first with ice, then add water to the rim, let the glass sit until all the ice has melted, the glass will not overflow because the ice has dispersed to match the water already surrounding it, not so with a glazier which is attached to land.

Answer 5

The icebergs are falling into the sea from the edges of the icecaps at an increasing rate. This is the extra water that is going to flood the lowlands of earth.
It's not the melting of the icebergs, it's the melting of the ice sheet that causes the sea level to rise.

Answer 6

yes they will ; but it will take many many years ----



if you put an ice-cube ( small iceberg )
in a full glass of water (small ocean)

there will be some displacement , at first and some overflow ..,

top up the glass , to its full level.
now wait for the ice to melt .

the glass of water will overflow, again due to the volume of water released from the ice cubes.

this will happen when the icebergs melt,
and the volume of sea water is thus increased---
But it will take place over millenniums of time
so don't build your Ark just yet .

>^,,^<

Answer 7

The sea level will definitively not rise when Icebergs melt.
Glaciers (ice currently on land) reaching the sea by melting or calving (the process whereby icebergs are "born") will absolutely cause the sea level to rise...and are doing so as we speak.

Answer 8

Archimedes principle says that the mass of the ice displaces an equal mass of water, therfore sea levels will not rise when floating ice melts. However, water expands when it freezes because it takes on air, and this mass also displaces an equal mass of water. When the ice melts it releases the air, meaning sea levels will fall. It's when the non-floaty ice melts that we might have a problem.

Answer 9

Due to Archimedes principal sea levels would not be altered due to Icebergs melting, they will stay the same. However the ice which is currently on the land, glaciers etc, will run into the sea when it melts and sea levels probably will rise.

Answer 10

Not all the ice at the poles actually is in the sea so yes the sea level will rise when and if they melt but not as much as some scientists would have you believe.