Sheet ice or floating ice already is part of the ocean’s volume. Even if ALL the ice sitting in the water melts, the water level won’t rise...
True as far as it goes. But what if all the ice located on land (Iceland, Greenland, Antarctica etc.) melts? In fact it started to melt about 13,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age and ocean levels have risen some 300 feet since then. The thing to remember is that this is a totally natural process and humans don't cause it and can't stop it.
Let us assume for the moment that there is so much ice above the surface of the ocean that its melting will raise the water level.
Today I was walking over a friend’s land, located 50 miles or so west of Norfolk, VA, and I notice quite a few round stones, the kind that one gets from dredging a river bottom.
I asked him how they got there, since the river is about 1/2 mile away. I suspected that he had dredged them and hauled them there since he does things like that.
He informed me that they were there because at one time that property was under the ocean and the stones were round because of the ocean currents.
I was amazed.
So the point is that whatever caused the ocean to cover that land was something man had nothing to do with, no control over, and probably occurred long before any human had ever inhabited the North American Continent.
So the best thing to do is be cool and wait it out.
If the ocean drowns everyone in DC. NY, Baltimore and Boston, we will be that much better off for it.
Who do you believe, Archimedes or Al Gore?
Much like the cubes melting in a glass of water. This is the analogy I use to educate the ignorant. Watch the melting cubes and see if the glass overflows.
Even if ALL the ice sitting in the water melts, the water level won’t rise...
Also, the article admits that much of the ice sheet sits *below sea level* in a depression in the earth. The melt ice below sea level can't contribute, since it will fill the depression it already occupies.
I believe a good deal of the southern ice sits atop the continent of Antarctica. I don’t know if the melt they’re talking about is restricted to floating ice or includes the ground based ice.
Actually if all the sheet ice melted the ocean levels would fall a bit as ice takes up 9% more volume than liquid water of the same mass.
Or am I wrong about that?
Obviously continental ice shelves like on the Antarctic mainland are a different story
Not true. When the ice melts in my soda it over flows... Right???
OH WAIT. I left my liberal hat on.
That's why they turned their attention from the Arctic (floating ice) to the Antarctic which is a land mass covered in glaciers.
Now...won't the land mass heave upward as the glaciers melt since huge amounts of weight will be removed? That happened at the end of the last ice age, didn't it?