How is the melting of the polar ice caps going to raise the sea level?

Question

Someone please explain to me how is the melting of the polar ice caps going to raise the sea level?

I can't really believe all this hype about the sea level rising 60ft. First off there is not that much ice in the polar regions on this planet and secondly, Ice is less dense than water, and occupied more space than water. So if the ice caps melted, then the sea level should actually lower. Do you see where I'm going with this.

Here's a fun activity you can try at home. Get a glass of water and fill it up with water, and ice. Mark the tip top point of where the ice has reached on the glass, and then let all the ice melt. Chances are the level of water didn't do anything.

You're probably going to say something about, it doesn't change much on a small scale. Well I'm saying it's not going to change much on a large scale. But if someone can explain how the water will raise over 25 feet please explain.

Answer 1

Ice is the solid form of water. When the ice melts, it becomes water. It probably wont make the sea level rise a lot, but I'm guessing it will rise a little.

Answer 2

I know what you're saying but your argument is fundementally flawed. It makes sense in respect of the Arctic Ice Cap which is floating and therefore displaces it's own mass of water - it could melt completely and sea levels would be unaffected.

Volume of ice is irrelevant - it's the mass that's important.

The Greenland Ice Sheet and Antarctica are land masses - i.e. they're not floating and any melting here adds to the water already in the seas and oceans. Antarctica alone covers 12% of the Earth's surface and the ice is up to 4 kilometres thick in places.

If all the ice melted (it won't but assuming it did) then sea levels would rise just over 80 metres (260 feet). Nobody is saying that sea levels will rise by 60 feet, that's something which has been taken out of context.

Sea levels are rising and will continue to rise, the amount is 3mm a year as a global average, locally up to 30mm in some places.

If you wanted to do a practical experiment here's something to try - half fill a sink with water and put a block of ice in it. Mark the water level, when the ice has melted check the water level - it will be exactly the same. Now put a block of ice on the draining board, as it melts the water runs off into the sink, when it's melted check the water level and this time it's gone up. In this experiment the Arctic is the floating ice and Antarctica and Greenland is the ice on the draining board.

Answer 3

I'll take a lash at this in very general terms that you might find to be persuasive.

Instead of doing your ice in the water experiment, let the ice melt in a dry saucer. Do this slowly, in the refrigerator, to approximate cold climate conditions. After awhile, you'll see water, instead of ice.

Now, scale that up to the size of the earth. The earth's outer crust -the "dirt" is the saucer, and the polar caps and similar landed and ice-covered areas are the saucer. On a global scale, if ice -worldwide- is melting faster than its being formed, you've got a net gain in water.

Now lets talk about "how much." 60 feet -or even 25 feet- is a LOT compared to the height of an average person. But it is very tiny compared to the average depth of the ocean, and we're working here with "earth-size" scale, remember. So that miniscule change from the ocean's point of view may be plenty enough to turn the streets of New York into something like the canals of Venice -which is OUR point of view. And we all know what happens when a given volume of water is added to either a deep or a shallow container - where it is shallow, the water spreads out more as any citizen of New Orleans would surely agree.

Now having said all that, let's have a look at some of the problems with predicting whether this scary scenario is actually going to occur. First of all, we can say with assurance that it WILL, because the earth itself goes through these cycles with or without human involvement. So our concern is with WHEN human activity may trigger the event (perhaps it already HAS been triggered, say some) and, once triggered, HOW LONG will it take before we start setting up beach chairs at Times Square?

In geologic terms, the impact might be pretty quick -say, 500 years to get that extra 25-60 feet. I'm making that up as a worse-case scenario but I think few would argue that 500 years would be very fast. But then again, that's from Mother Earth's point of view. For mortal humans, 500 years might be time enough to do something about it, such as head for the hills or build a really BIG wall. But the problem here is not just water -but the weather that goes along with such a change in water level. Some predict all kinds of disruptive weather patterns including some nightmare hurricanes, flooding and a host of other disasters. Then again, some say more areas of the earth will have a climate that lets us grow more food.

Now let's turn to the question of human actvity. Have we -ARE we- contributing to the problem? Well, of course we are. How can we not? If we did nothing but sit still and make babies, we would make the place hotter simply because we produce heat by merely existing -and more heat than would be the case if we weren't here at all. The problem is, that once a momentum is established globally in environmental, natural systems, its darn hard to reverse it. Ever tried to make a wave go backwards? And so, if the ACTUAL way we live has really made the place get hot -and get hot fast- we'd better be looking at some pretty serious changes in what we do if we want any hope at all of slowing it down and restoring the "natural rhythm" (whatever that is).

Finally, we need to be aware of WHO is doing the predicting -whether they say it is good news, bad news, or no news at all. These are the same folks who use highly sophisticated computer "models" and gobs of historical data to predict -next weeks weather. And we all know how well they're doing with that. So it is a bit difficult to expect high reliability when they're talking hundreds and thousands of years from now. And even IF they had it right -no one has factored in cataclysmic changes brought on by asteroids, astounding volcanic action or other really big players in the global high-stakes environment game. We don't know now if any of that will play a part, but we do know it has in the past -BIG TIME- and we have no reason to believe it won't in the future, and furthermore, we have some reason to be nervous about it being soon, because we're "overdue," in terms of those occurrences.

Does any of this mean we shouldn't change our behavior? Not at all. But what it does mean is that the motive for more gentle living -reducing the challenge we make to the environment- should arise not so much from fear of what will happen if we don't, but rather because we care about what we have.

Make sense?

Answer 4

Your analogy with the ice cubes in a glass of water is correct for the arctic ice, since it is indeed floating on the ocean. Melting of this ice will not effect the sea level significantly. But, most of the worlds ice is actually on land, primarily in Antarctica and Greenland. If this ice should melt, the melt water will run into the ocean and raise the sea levels.

We know that in the past warming cycles, these ice caps were much smaller. We also know from the location of prehistoric beaches that the sea levels were indeed much higher during peak temperature periods. Based on analysis of these beaches, we estimate that the sea level in the past has been as much as 20 meters higher than it is today.

Answer 5

As bdloving says... The ice that is melting which IS raising sea level is the land ice on Antarctica and on Greenland and in all the glaciers in all the mountain ranges all around the world. If you want to prove this to yourself. Get a plate, load it up with ice cubes, add water so the water level is right up to the point before it flows over the edge. Now wait for the ice cubes to melt.

Answer 6

Experiment Time. Get you a regular glass of ice and put the glass in the sun but, fill the glass of water up to the top make sure that you the glass of ice water in a glass bowl so that you can see what is going on. Think of the glass as the world in which we are living and then think of the ice as the polar glaciers, now think of the water as the water already in the world. When the ice melts there will be no where for the water to go but up and this is why they are saying that the worlds sea levels will rise. I

Answer 7

The southern polar ice caps have become extremely thicker. For some unknown reason the mainstream media has not brought this fact to the attention of the public. The polar bears have actually doubled their population over the last four years. The video shown worldwide of polar bears scrambling to remain afloat on a tiny ice floe was actually dubbed and digitalized, as reported by an observer who observed the video being taken from a distance and said that the bears were actually on a very large ice floe.

Answer 8

Melting the North Pole will have no effect, since that ice is all floating in water. Melting the South Pole... there are approximately 29,000,000 cubic KILOmeters of ice in Antarctica. Contrary to what you may think, that is a LOT of ice. Try taking your full glass of water and dumping a few more ice cubes in it. Now you have to clean it up! Oops! Now try the same thing with the planet. Does anyone have a paper towel?

Answer 9

The melting of *floating* ice does not change the level of the ocean at all. What does change sea level is the melting of ice on land. There are large areas of Earth's land surface covered by ice, notably Greenland, Antarctica, and mountain glaciers. If all of that melted, the volume is great enough to raise sea level by 80 meters, or 260 feet.

http://cegis.usgs.gov/pdf/aag-2007.pdf

Answer 10

All of the ice that is on top of the land and ontop of the water will melt and go into the oceans where it was not before and still displace more than it had before