Melting Icecaps
Most recent answer: 10/22/2007
- Steven Groves (age 15)
Kingston,Jamaica
First, let’s deal with the glass and then with the very different ice cap problem.
Actually, the liquid water level in the glass will not fall, because part of the ice was sitting above the liquid. The volume of the melted ice is less than the volume of the ice, but exactly equal to the volume of the submerged part of the ice. So the liquid level won’t change.
The ice cap situation is quite a bit different. Large parts of the ice sheets are not floating on water but sitting on land. When they melt, water gets dumped into the seas, raising their levels. Also (and this is probably the point your teacher was making) , most of the ocean is warmer than 4°C. That means that nearly all of the water expands when it's warmed further. So global warming is raising the water level both by melting land-based ice and by expanding the water already in the seas.
Mike W.
(published on 10/22/2007)
Follow-Up #1: Melting Icecaps
- Bill Dinwiddie
Garner, NC USA
What counts is not the area covered but the total volume of ice which might melt and slide off land into the sea.
For a nice discussion of the contributions (and uncertainties) of various components to the sea level rise from global warming, you might check
In the short run, thermal expansion of the water due to rising ocean temperatures is the main contributor. In the medum run, melting of the Greenland ice pack would raise sea level seven meters. In the longer run, huge rises would result if much of the Antarctic pack melted. The rates of these melting processes are poorly understood, because it's not known how much under-ice water lubricates the ice flows.
I have no idea what you mean by "replace the ice melted in the water’. That ice is melting, not evaporating!
Mike W.
(published on 11/17/2007)
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