OT Melting North pole ice cap to cause seas to rise?

I know there are many here with a scientific bent, so perhaps someone can explain the above idea? I thought that there was no land in the Arctic. Therefore if the ice melts surely the water level cannot rise? After all if you place Ice in a glass, then fill it to the brim when the ice melts the glass simply stays full. If the polar cap is floating on the sea then surely as the ice melts it has already displaced the volume of water that its melting will create? At least that is what I thought Archimedes proved. The Antarctic, being on land, is of course different, but there again, I have read that the ice cap there is actually increasing. Perplexed in frozen England.

Reply to
Broadback
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It will start to rise once the average temperature of the water rises, from thermal expansion.

Reply to
newshound

The floating ice around the North Pole, as you say, will not cause sea level to rise if it melts. The problem is the Greenland ice cap which is a thick layer of ice overlying solid land.

Stephen

Reply to
Stephen Mawson

Not all the ice in the northern polar regions is floating sea ice. There are large amounts in, for example, Greenland.

Whether you agree or disagree with this article, it does at least explain quite how much ice is there.

Reply to
Rod

It isn't. Largely its sitting on Greenland actually.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

You're right of course. Your confusion is down to some really dodgy reporting in the media, as ever. Terms get mixed up, incorrect terms used and misapplied.

The melting ice caps are not directly the cause of the rise in sea level, even without your analysis above consider how much water they would release and how much that would raise levels when spread over the whole surface area. There are a number of inter-related processes and I'm not entirely certain I understand which dominates but here are a selection

The oceans are 3 dimensional and global temperatures are increasing. As the water warms it expands in volume and as the bottom and sides of the oceans are solid the only way is up. Obviously the oceans are a complex shape underneath but for a cuboid container a 10% "linear" increase would be seen as a 33% rise in the level. [I'm not suggesting that water is going to expand 10% BTW!].

Global Warming, the process whereby the average temperatures across the planet rise by a small amount, is believed likely to cause Climate Change. We simply don't have the models to make accurate predictions, in particular our models assume that changes will be linear whereas in reality there are likely to be sudden and non-reversible steps in the process. One of particular concern to us in the UK would be a change to the pattern of mass air movement as we are kept much warmer by a flow of warm moist air from the Atlantic. The reason you are currently freezing is because that air currently isn't (temporarily I hope!) getting to us due to a block of high pressure, very cold, air from the east.

Researchers admit, although generally not to the press as they would mis-represent it, that they simply don't know what will happen although they are pretty sure something will. I remember a UN conference back in the late

80's or early 90's where we were told that the best prediction was -70cm to +180cm change in sea levels. Things have moved on a lot since then but the uncertainty band in the predictions is still huge. The possible fall in level by the way could be caused by GW causing a wetter environment at the poles leading to more water becoming trapped as ice and snow.

So, to get back to the question: Melting ice caps don't contribute much to the rise in sea level. Melting ice caps and sea level rise are both a result of global warming.

Reply to
Calvin Sambrook

Well it will if its the ice on Antarctica. That will give a 200' or so increase in sea level.

Reply to
Tim Streater

The ice melts and many icebergs break off and float down below Iceland where the Gulf Stream turns back towards the Caribbean. These broken away icebergs affect the temperature of water and can, and did in the 1700s, stop the reversal of the water. The Gulf Stream is a conveyor belt bringing warm water to our shores raising the temperature beyond what the latitude should have. The point below Iceland is called the Odden pump.

If this happens then the UK drops into a mini ice age. Look at the land near oceans on the east coast of North America and the Pacific at the same latitude. They are very cold and we will be about the same. Polar bear territory.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Perhaps true, but it's only the Antarctic peninsular that is warming; most of the area is getting colder, and building up ice.

Reply to
newshound

Could have sworn I saw one yesterday!

Reply to
Chris Hogg

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Chris Hogg saying something like:

If it was a bit mad, perhaps it was a bi-polar bear.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

Is that two, or one that swings both ways?

Reply to
Fredxx

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