If the world was to take all the ships out of the oceans do you think the water level would rise?

Question

Due to the displacement of water from ships

Answer 1

It seems to me, that logically the water level would fall, but probably not that significantly. Just like a cup of water is a cup of water, but if you place a rock in it, it is going to appear to be more than a cup of water, therfore, if you take the rock out it returns to being a cup. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

It is very difficult to measure the water level in the ocean and it's usually done as an average either over a few hours, days, or sometimes months.

Thinking logically about this: when you put an ice cube in water, the volume of the cube displaces the water and makes it appear to have more water in it. This is how you can test the volume of something that you cannot figure out the volume of otherwise (an irregularly shaped object).

However the earth's ocean's are deeper in some places and shallower in others. If you removed all the ships, the water level might drop, but it might also just drop locally where the ship was because of currents, etc and because of the sheer size difference between the ships and the ocean. Thinking back to the ice cube example. If the ice cube was thousands of times smaller than the glass, would you be able to see the water level fall when you removed the ice cube? Probably not.

Edit: I just read the answer of the person above me and I appeared to have taken from her, but seriously, I did not read the comments before I posted lol

Answer 3

The water level would drop slightly because a ship displaces its own mass in water. But the amount of water displaced by all the ships in the world is negligeable compared to the amount of water in the oceans, so the fall would be imperceptible.

To significantly lower the sea level you'd have to take out something that displaces a lot more water than all the ships in the world, like an underwater mountain range (in fact the terrain of the ocean bottom has a significant effect on sea levels - in prehistory the times when the ocean bottoms had the roughest terrain was also the times when the sea levels were highest, because underwater mountains displace water - an underwater mountain range can raise the sea level much more than you would by melting the polar ice caps).

Answer 4

For one thing, the displaced water causes the water level to rise with the ships IN the ocean, so most likely the water level would fall. But, it would fall by such a small amount that it would be impossible to measure.

Answer 5

That's backwards.
Ships displace water and make the level higher than it would be without the ships. Remove the ships and the level would drop.

However, we're talking about the vast interconnected oceans here, and with the quantity of water in question, the tides, and so on, the change would be imperceptible.

Answer 6

Think of when you get into the bath - it rises once you're in. Therefore: it would fall. But by a long shot, I don't think it would make that much difference.

Answer 7

If you took all the ships out, it would fall.

Answer 8

minutely if you drop a penny in you bath tube does the water rise, can you tell?