Question: if all the ice in the world melted would there be less land than there is now?

Oliver Brown answered on 10 Mar 2015:

Well there would be the same amount of land, but it would all be underwater, which would be problematic!

Actually I was able to find this awesome interactive map from National Geographic (which you may have to wait until you’re home to access!) which shows the shoreline if all the ice in the world melted: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map

If you scroll right you can find Europe, in the UK it looks like London would be gone and a lot of East Anglia. The reason for this is that water is *less* dense as a solid than it is as a liquid — freezing water makes it take up less space than it did as a liquid! The reason for THAT is a particular kind of bond that only Hydrogen can form makes the water molecules in solid form move closer together than they otherwise would. In liquid form the water molecules aren’t on average close enough together to form the bond, but in solid they are.