When enviromentalists tell us that the melting of the polar caps would cause the sea level to raise by 20 feet

Question

Are they taking into account that 9/10th of the ice is submerged in the water and therefore already contribuiting to the current sealevel, or are they falsely assuming that all of the ice in the polar caps including the part that is submerged, if melted, adds up to the current sea level ?

well yah if extremist fit or not in this case would depend on if the answer to my question is 1 or 2

Parrot enviromentalists arent necessarily scientists. Actually some scientists say the maximum increase would be around 28 inches.

Answer 1

Don't get your "science" from extremists. They like to use scare tactics to make their points.

Answer 2

No!!

They are right. If we loose the West Antarctic ice shelf, we the sea will rise 20 feet and displace over 100 million people. This will overpopulate the rest of the world putting even more stress on the environment. The same will happen if Greenland melts but in addition to raising the sea level 20 feet, it will also stop the natural current that keeps Europe out of an ice age. And people say its already starting to slow down because cold fresh water meets up with the cold salt water that's falling down to the bottom of the sea but if its less salty it will take longer, slowing down the natural current.

Okay for the 9/10th of it being underwater look at this. If you have a glass of water with one ice cube in it, when it melts nothing really happens, but if you have several ice cubes stacked on top of each other (polar caps) they will melt and overflow the glass.


And if you don't believe me watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" Its really good and it finally tells this world the truth about global warming and what might happen.


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Wow what have people been putting into your head. 28 inches??? Wow that's way wrong. If it was 28 inches why is the world on alert and trying to stop the ice caps from melting then? Use your common sense.

Answer 3

Of course if the melted ice would simply replace the displaced ice we wouldn't be hearing about a sea level rise. The fact is the that sea level has been raising more than is natural over the past century and a half and is continuing to increase due to the actions of man. Billions of humans live on or near the coasts, and rising sea levels spell disaster. Even an increase of a few feet, for example, would kill and displace tens to hundreds of millions of people in Bangladesh.

To find out more about this issue, as well as other enviromental concerns and what you can do to help check out www.thegspwebsite.com

Answer 4

The polar ice caps --Greenland and Antartica--are sitting on LAND--go look at a map, genius. All of the ice melt off them is from ice that is not IN the ocean and so will add to the rising sea level.

Answer 5

When they talk about sea level rising they are NOT talking about the floating ice of the north pole melting. They are talking about the ice on land in Greenland and Antarctica melting and the water running off the land and into the sea.

Answer 6

Yes, they are taking that into account. The ice that is being talked about the the land based ice on Greenland and Antarctica.

It's amazing how many people think that Ph.D. scientists must be idiots.

By the way I presume you pulled the "9/10" out of the air. It's flat wrong. Antarctica alone has more ice than 10%.

Answer 7

Gee, I bet they never thought of that.

Actually, you got it wrong, too. Floating ice when melted doesn't raise the water level at all. The primary concern is not floating ice, but glacial ice located on land such as the giant ice sheets on Greenland. If that melts is will all contribute to raising the sea level.

Answer 8

The global warming wacos get government grants to study global warming in our left wing universities. Scientists that debunk global warming get no grants and are not welcome in our left wing schools. We should trade our coal fired plants for nuke plants just in case there is anything for this global warming business. As for Al Gore, the man lives in a monster house that is sucking up a great deal of energy.

Answer 9

I'd like to know where Al Gore got his PhD in geology, climatology,astronomy, etc. to be so informed on global warming. Yes, Earth is heating up. And yes, there are PhD's out there that like to hear themselves think aloud on TV and be "popular" and feel "smart" on the subject. However, why aren't the VAST majority of scientists that have spent years studying global warming heard? Their conclusion is that the earth's tilt is closer to the sun. And, that this is a cyclic event that the earth has completed for millions of years. Can anyone disprove this theory? Good example. Ancient Egypt was lush and green with vegetation. Geologists have marked great vegetation growth that have left its marks over thousands of years on and near the walls of the Sphinx. The area is now a barren, dry, rocky, dust bowl. Climate changes have been happening for thousands of years.

Answer 10

When ice is floating it displaces it's own equivalent mass of water. The reason 9/10ths of the ice is submerged is that it's slightly less dense than water due to trapped air and that it expands when it freezes.

If floating ice melts it does not affect water levels. The Arctic is floating, it could melt completely and would have no effect on sea levels.

However, the Arctic accounts for only a tiny proportion of ice on the planet (0.01%), most is found in Antarctica (89.75%) and Greenland (9.97%); neither of which are floating. If the Arctic melts it disappears completely, if the Antarctic or Greenland ice melts it exposes land beneath (only the sea ice and ice sheets are over water).

When calculating changes to sea levels all these and more factors are taken into account.

The floating ice is made up from: The Ross Ice Shelf, Ronne-Filcher ice shelves, seasonal floating pack ice and the Arctic ice pack. Together they account for 2.1% of the ice on the planet. The remaining 97.9% is grounded or land based ice.

Arctic ice is melting at the rate of 600km³ per year and could be gone in 40 years, Greenland is melting at the rate of 220km³ per year at which rate it will last 13,000 years; Antractica is melting at the rate of 82km³ per year so would last for 300,000 years (figures based on average melting over the last 10 years and assume continued melting at the same rate into the future).

If the Arctic melts sea levels will not rise, if the Greenland ice melts completely sea levels will rise by 6.55 metres (21 feet), if Antracticea melts sea levels will rise by 73.41 metres (241 feet). If every bit of ice on the planet melts sea levels will rise by 80.32 metres (263 feet).

Current sea level rises are locally between -2 and +30mm per year with a global average of +3mm. The rate of rising is increasing, 100 years ago it was 1mm a year, in 50 years it's expected to be 6mm a year, by the end of the century it's expected that sea levels will have risen by 750mm and that the rate of rise then will be 12mm a year.

Answer 11

Scientists aren't stupid, Cassius. So whenever you come up with some objection to the theory based on fifth grade science you should, as a general rule of thumb, assume they've thought of it already.

Scientists aren't worried about water based ice melting (although the fact that it is indicates warming temperatures). They're worried about the thermal expansion of warming oceans, runoff from melting glaciers, and the melting of the continental polar ice caps.