If an iceberg melts, how would the level of the ocean change?

Question

Please compute the net increase in height of oceans upon 40 million km^3 of ice being melted in our ocean water having a surface area of 350,000,000 km^2. Consider water having a density of 1.00 kg/L, ice at 0.917 kg/L and sea water having a density of 1.025 kg/L. I come up with 2.56 meters. what do you get?

Answer 1

I get a headache.
Here's an experiment, easy and self satisfying.Take a large glass of water not quite full. Measure it's distance from the top of the glass and weigh glass and water together. Take some ice and fill it to the top of the glass level with the rim. Weigh the glass, ice and water together. Go do something useful. When all the ice is melted, measure the distance to the top of glass again. See? Not a lot of difference, is there? Now, don't you feel a lot safer from drownding from melting polar ice caps? If not, repeat experiment using less water and more ice, until you do feel better. OK?............ OK.

Answer 2

the idea of ocean levels changing in response to ice has traction because during the ice ages when entire continents were covered with ice up to a mile thick, the ocean levels were indeed lower than they are now. however the current sea level is not likely to advance much even with the entire loss of the arctic an anarctic polar ice. forget density, the weight of ice displaces a like weight of seawater, this has been known since the days of archimedes.

The surface area calculation is a big variable. not all the worlds' coast lines are the white cliffs of dover. The continental shelf is such that dropping levels moves the coast line out rapidly which accentuated the affect from glaciation. Moving up also expands the surface so that it takes much more than a simple column of water to cause a specific elevation rise.

warmer water and expanded surface area will drive more vapor off, so part of the melted ice will become water added to the atmosphere. warm air supports much more water (humidity) content.

putting ice on land lowers sea levels, melting the ice covering water doesn't change sea levels.

Answer 3

Iceberg is floating ice, so if it melts, it will have no effect on the water level. As it floats, it is displacing the same amount of water that is above the surface.

If you have a glass of water with ice in it, and fill the water all the way to the rim, some of the ice will be sticking up above the rim, but when it melts, the water will not overflow.

The problem with increasing sea level due to global warming has to do with ice on land melting into the ocean and thermal expansion of the ocean water (when water heats up, it expands, which takes up more space, thus increasing sea level)

Answer 4

To tell you the truth you also have to talk into account even more when you try to determine sea level rise. The first is the fact ice is less dense then water. Another fact you have to look at is the fact water gets less dense as it heats up. You need to subtract the in the water vapor which would be added into the atmosphere. The climatologists' best estimates is below three meters, but most models show that it will probably be less then a meter and only a few centimeters in your lifetime, because melted water does not just sit in the ocean, it travels.

Answer 5

a few mor feet higher than it was before

Answer 6

the ocean would rise which is not good.