Question: if all the ice in the north poll melted would the UK flood and if that happens were would be the first place to be flooded

James Pope answered on 12 Mar 2015:

Hi KaiF,

The ice cap at the North Pole is sea ice, which means it is already in the water. So, like ice cubs in your glass the melting of the sea ice does not raise sea level.

There are three big ice sheets on Earth, Greenland, West Antarctica and East Antarctic. If we melted these we would see

Greenland – 7 metres sea level rise
West Antarctica – 5 metres sea level rise
East Antarctica – approx 60 metres sea level rise

The one most likely to melt is West Antarctica, which despite being in the Southern Hemisphere , would have a big impact globally. Infact as the gravity of the ice sheet pulls the ocean towards it, the sea level actually drops by Antarctica if you melt the West Antarctic ice sheet! Very cool I reckon!

If we got the full 5 metres of sea level rise, it would be felt across the UK. The first areas to be flooded would be the low lying areas around East Anglia and Cambridgeshire as well as coastal regions near the main tidal rivers, such as the Thames (London), Severn (Bristol), Mersey (Liverpool), Tyne (Newcastle), Forth (Edinburgh) and Humber (Hull).

You can experiment to see the differences in sea level rise at home. Get a big mixing bowl and a cereal bowl. Put the cereal bowl upside down in the mixing bowl, this is your land. Put in some water around the land, and then add some ice cubes to the water. Mark the sea level on the land and wait for them to melt, you’ll see no change in the sea level from when teh ice cubes were whole or melted. Now repeat but with ice cubs on the land, when these melt you should see sea level rise.