Ice is water, is ice, is water.
Doesn’t ice come from moisture already on earth?
How does ice get to be a larger area just because it changes from water to ice, visa-versa?
Does ice take up the same amount of space once it has melted back to water or does it get larger?
I’m just trying to understand. Anyone?
If water evaporates off the ocean, the ocean level will drop and the water will be in the air. Now, when it snows onto land, that water (snow) is on the land and is still not raising the sea level.
Then the snow piles up, packs down, squeezes into ice..which—despite being compressed—is still greater in volume than it would be if it were liquid water.
Now, go mark the sea level.
Then, if that ice melts, the water flows off the land into the ocean, and sea level rises. Your mark will be higher after the warming. (Just like a glass of water filled to the brim will overflow if you melt an ice cube in your hand and let the water run into it...like ice melting from land would do to the ocean.)
Of course, that’s for ice on land, such as Greenland or Antarctica, and I have neglected factors like salinity changes, the expansion of liquid water with temperature changes, etc.