if global warming is true, and if the icecaps do melt, what would happen?

Question

i mean, when you have a cold drink with ice in it, what happens when the ice melts? does your glass overflow?

Answer 1

When ice in a glass melts, the water level remains the same, because the ice was only displacing its own mass in water. When it melts, it becomes denser and loses the extra volume that was floating above the surface of the water. So if only icebergs were melting, we'd have issues related to temperature and currents in the water, but we wouldn't have an increase in the water level. The problem is that ice on land is melting, too. Huge portions of Canada, Greenland, Siberia, and Scandinavia among other places, and not to mention the entirety of Antarctica, are covered with glaciers. If all of that ice should melt, it would flow into the oceans. Since that water was never in there before, unlike the ice in your glass, it would increase the water level.

Answer 2

DavidK gave you a good answer. An immense amount of water is tied up in icecaps and glaciers on land. When they melt - and they are melting now - that will add more water to the world's oceans. Projections I have heard predict that ocean levels could eventually rise by 20 feet. That would put all the world's coastal cities, like New York and London, under water. This won't happen tomorrow, of course, but it could take place in the next 50-100 years if present trends continue.

And there's no question that global warming is happening. The only question is, how much of it is caused by human activity.

Answer 3

Yes, it is true, when you have an iced drink, when the ice melts, there is no increase in the volume occupied by the liquid. Because even as a solid, the ice already COVERS a certain volume. So when it melts, it just TRANSFORMS into a liquid. Compare that to Earth's Icecaps and Icebergs. Icecaps are on land. They do not readily occupy volume in the waters as in their solid state. Icebergs: Icebergs, yes occupies volume while in water, but... take note of the part of the icebergs that are on the surface. They DO NOT occupy volume in the water itself. It is 1/8 of the total volume of the iceberg, so when it melts, it will occupy space in the volume of the water, following MATTER'S LAW OF IMPENETRABILITY, which states that NO two or more objects can occupy the same space at the same time... So, when Earth's icecaps melt, the sea level will RISE... :-) Hope that helps....

Answer 4

"Icecap: seawater would rise abnormally and flood all land.
Ice cube: if the glass is full to the rim, then yes. "


No on both counts.

The sea level would not rize enough to flood all land. It would rize to flood much of the sea shore, but if the elevation was a few hundred meters above current sea level, it would not be flooded.

An ice cube melting in a full to the brim glass of water will not change the level in the glass at all. The ice cube displaces a weight of water equal to its own weight. When the ice melts, the displacement volume remains the same.

Answer 5

The earth would become a water-world and species would adapt. Probably wouldn't bode well for humans, but life would go on. However this theory about the polar icecaps is incorrect. The methodology used in measuring sea ice was flawed, and unfortunately like all incorrect scientific conclusions they cannot admit their mistake. I don't know if global warming is occurring or not, there isn't a true scientific unity on the matter, no matter what the doom and gloomers want you to believe. If it is happening it may not be man-made, but rather a natural phenomenon. We have not been measuring temperatures for long enough to project out climate change over geologic timescales. Global warming is about government funding for scientists. They change the rhetoric every 15 years or so, and never admit mistakes. Who remembers the hole in the ozone layer? How about the predecessor to global warming? Global cooling and the new ice-age. People will believe what they must, for me I am just going to go on with my life. I refuse to live in constant fear. Conservation and pollution control is something we should all be concerned with, but I am sick of the fallacies ever present in the whole climate debate.

Answer 6

David K has a good point about the ice on land melting as well.

However, regarding the icecaps, the world has a "hydrologic" cycle, which has to do with condensation, evaporation and precipitation.

If the frozen water melts and enters this cycle, the earth would not be able to keep up with the condensation/evaporation cycle, and flooding would indeed occur.

More info:
http://www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/eng/fkarner/pages/cycle.htm

Answer 7

If the icecaps melted, sea levels would rise by metres- putting many major cities under water and flooding probably billions and billions of kilometres of land.

Check out the documentary movie 'An Inconvenient Truth'... I haven't seen it, but I know that it discusses global warming and its effects in great detail.

Answer 8

i don't have the respond anymore than the subsequent individual. All i will post is that decrease back April 1970, the date of the 1st Earth Day interior the U. S. i replace right into a junior in extreme college. And for the previous 3 years and by each and every of the hoopla of that 1st Earth Day the winning "medical awareness" of the time proclaimed that we've been headed for a sparkling and devastating (is there the different sort I remember thinking) ICE AGE. Now, 36 years later the winning "medical awareness" says we are heating up and we are doomed by skill of the golf green domicile result. for my area, I vote that we are in one in each and every of earth's cycles. Is the present cycle area of guy's impression on the ecosystem; i would not dispute that as area of the equation.

Answer 9

Just an increase of 1 degree centigrade(Celsius) in the entire world will suffice for the icebergs to melt and inundate the globe.

Answer 10

Icecap: seawater would rise abnormally and flood all land.
Ice cube: if the glass is full to the rim, then yes.