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To: gondramB

Here's a little tidbit:

---Sea Level Over the past century, sea level is estimated to have risen about 4 to 8 inches (10-20 centimeters) worldwide. If global warming causes sea level to rise, scientists claim it will be from two main factors: the partial melting of the ice caps, snow fields, and small glaciers, and the thermal expansion of sea water; as it warms, it takes up more volume. Other more localized factors, besides atmospheric warming, may influence sea level rise including: human-caused subsidence by pumping out groundwater, oil, natural gas, or erosion by hurricanes of natural sand buffers. Predictions of future sea level rise are hard to make, but some scientists estimate that melting ice and warming ocean water could raise sea level by as much as one meter by 2100.

One of the least understood areas is the West Antarctic ice sheet and its potential for breaking up into giant icebergs. In one scenario, if global warming results in even a small rise in sea level, warmer water could flow under the West Antarctic ice sheet and break off ice chunks the size of New England. These ice chunks, which now sit on land, could raise sea level an estimated 18 feet worldwide, flooding coastal cities like Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts. Most scientists now think this scenario is unlikely to occur, and if it did, it would take centuries to happen. Some scientists say that increased moisture from global warming could turn to snow in the Antarctic. This could actually contribute to a fall in sea level as the Antarctic locks up the moisture as ice. Most scientists caution that it is very hard to predict what will actually happen.

Why won't the floating ice caps melting in the North Pole/Arctic Ocean affect sea level? (Because this floating ice is already displacing its own volume in water.) Only the ice that breaks off or melts from land, i.e. the Greenland ice sheet, Antarctic ice sheet, and mountain glaciers can raise sea level.---

http://octopus.gma.org/surfing/antarctica/antarctica.html

So it could rise a meter or 18 feet or it might fall...


81 posted on 10/17/2005 6:16:02 PM PDT by claudiustg (Go Bush! Go Sharon!)
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To: claudiustg

Thanks for finding that... I was unaware of the thermal expansion issue.


82 posted on 10/17/2005 6:18:51 PM PDT by gondramB (Conservatism is a positive doctrine. Reactionaryism is a negative doctrine.)
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