[Diddle E. Squat]

OK, there is something here that I have never heard a satisfying explanation about: Just for the sake of argument assume that global warming is true, since 90% of an iceberg is below the surface, and ice takes up more volume than water, how can melting icecaps(they are floating) raise sea levels significantly?

[E=MC²]

Ice melting in the Arctic should not affect sea levels (it is already displacing its weight in water)...it is ice on land (the Antarctic) melting that would affect sea levels.

[BearCub]

OK, there is something here that I have never heard a satisfying explanation about: Just for the sake of argument assume that global warming is true, since 90% of an iceberg is below the surface, and ice takes up more volume than water, how can melting icecaps(they are floating) raise sea levels significantly?

Like the earlier poster said, melting arctic ice won't raise sea levels at all but antarctic ice, if it all melted, would raise sea level by something like 200 feet. BUT, scientists do not think that will happen in the next few hundred years, if ever. Right now they are projectng a .29 to 2.88 foot rise in mean sea level between now and 2100.

-bc

[Ross Amann]

This is correct for northern ice. It all floats on water and melting it all would not change the sea level by 1 millimeter.

However, the southern icecap is far more massive and sits mostly on land, on Antartica - osme of it is BELOW sea level. Melting it all would cause an enormous rise in sea level - I am hazy on the exact details here, but, trust me, we don't wan't to do it! Meanwhile the continent of Antartica would rise, freed of all the icecap's weight.

If it means anything, I have a Ph.D. in Physics.

[altayann]

The problem is that not all the ice in the world is floating. A good part of the Antartic ice shelf is in fact resting on solid rock.

[MissAmericanPie]

water takes up more volume than ice. Fill a glass with lots of water, put ice in it and wait for the ice to melt, it will over spill the edge of the glass.

[Henk]

OK, there is something here that I have never heard a satisfying explanation about: Just for the sake of argument assume that global warming is true, since 90% of an iceberg is below the surface, and ice takes up more volume than water, how can melting icecaps(they are floating) raise sea levels significantly?

You are right, it can't. It's only the prospect of melting landlocked glaciers that can cause sea level to rise. Problem there is glaciers melt from the bottom, and the bottom of a one mile thick chunk of ice is completely insensitive to temperature changes at the surface.