• Question: when the ice caps melt, will it raise the water not as much as the ice there, as ice takes up more space than water.

    Asked by cyberguy to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Nice cyberguy. Good reasoning and knowledge. This explanation might help: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm

      I like the weird properties of water re expansion as ice and also freezing quicker when placed in the freezer hot as opposed to cold (though this may be due to impurities in water).

    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Hi cyberguy,

      If the Arctic icecap melts, it won’t raise sea levels, because the amount of water the floating ice displaces is the same as the amount it produces when it melts. (you can prove this by floating some ice cubes in a glass and marking where the water line is, then seeing if it changes as the ice cube melt.

      On the other hand, if all the ice in Antarctica was to melt, sea levels would increase by quite a bit – because this ice is on land. As it melts, new water is added to the oceans – and so they rise.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Hi cyberguy – I think Andrew M answered this question really well and got there before me! The water displacement of ice bergs is one of the greatest misunderstanding the general public make in understanding the relationship between global warming and melting ice caps. The Antarctic, by the way, is much colder and the ice denser than the North Pole so the climate change scientists predict that it will melt much more slowly:).

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      It depends which ice we’re talking about.
      Ice floating in the sea, like that around the Arctic (north pole), doesn’t raise sea levels much because it’s already in the sea, displacing water volume.

      However, if ice on land melts (like on the Antarctic continent) then that does raise the sea level, because the melting ice is now adding to the water volume in the oceans.

      I hope that makes sense! [edit: OK, Andrew’s already said all that!]

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