question for scientists

[epidural man]

Riddle me this....

If I take a glass of water fill it up, then drop ice in it - water spills over the top because ice is less dense, takes up more space.

Or said another way, say I put ice in a glass (lots of ice) then add water to the glass until it is all the way full, then let the ice melt completely. In this scenario, the water will NEVER overfill the glass, but the water line will actually recede.

Okay - how come everyone says that as the ice that is FLOATING on the ocean melts, the oceans will RISE in water levels. That makes NO SENSE to me. What am I missing Smart PhD's claim this.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/to...ust-got-worse-study-finds/ar-AA9QnTy?ocid=ans

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Spinach Dip]

Antarctica is a continent (a land mass) covered by ice. That ice is NOT currently floating in the ocean.

 

[kzjb333]

Antarctica is a continent (a land mass) covered by ice. That ice is NOT currently floating in the ocean.

Solved the crime first day on the job!

 

[Spinach Dip]

Solved the crime first day on the job!

Will things get harder on day 2?

 

[twoliter]

Riddle me this....

If I take a glass of water fill it up, then drop ice in it - water spills over the top because ice is less dense, takes up more space.

Or said another way, say I put ice in a glass (lots of ice) then add water to the glass until it is all the way full, then let the ice melt completely. In this scenario, the water will NEVER overfill the glass, but the water line will actually recede.

Okay - how come everyone says that as the ice that is FLOATING on the ocean melts, the oceans will RISE in water levels. That makes NO SENSE to me. What am I missing Smart PhD's claim this.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/to...ust-got-worse-study-finds/ar-AA9QnTy?ocid=ans

Spinach answered your question, but you were wrong about one part. The water line will not recede as the ice melts. There is ice floating above the water line, too. The water line will remain the same.

 

[epidural man]

Spinach answered your question, but you were wrong about one part. The water line will not recede as the ice melts. There is ice floating above the water line, too. The water line will remain the same.

Are you sure? The amount of ice below the surface displaces a lot more volume than the volume of ice above the water line. The water line seems like it will recede.

Admittedly, the phase diagram for water is complicated and it may be that in the polar caps, the crystalline structure of ice is in a more dense form. I doubt that is true but it may be.

I still contend that even given some of the ice OVER land will add volume, the majority of ice that is melting is floating - thus not adding volume at all.

 

[kzjb333]

Will things get harder on day 2?

Martin Lawrence quote from the movie Blue Streak.

 

[epidural man]

Actually, I should not consider myself a scientist anymore - so ashamed.

It is archimede's principle - water level will stay the same.

but does salt water vs fresh ice cube change the equation?

 

[pgg]

I still contend that even given some of the ice OVER land will add volume, the majority of ice that is melting is floating - thus not adding volume at all.

You contend that most melting ice is floating? What, is the location of ice on the planet something that's just a matter of opinion now?

This thread is a gloriously concise summation of the climate change "debate" - 97-98% of scientists on one side, and the other side injecting hopes, assumptions, desires, strawmen ("everyone says [...] because [...]"), and guesses to cast doubt on the data.

The flaw in your scientific reasoning wasn't not remembering Archimedes, it was starting with a conclusion (sea level change isn't going to happen) and then going looking for reasons to believe what you wanted to believe in the first place.

 

[epidural man]

You contend that most melting ice is floating? What, is the location of ice on the planet something that's just a matter of opinion now?

This thread is a gloriously concise summation of the climate change "debate" - 97-98% of scientists on one side, and the other side injecting hopes, assumptions, desires, strawmen ("everyone says [...] because [...]"), and guesses to cast doubt on the data.

The flaw in your scientific reasoning wasn't not remembering Archimedes, it was starting with a conclusion (sea level change isn't going to happen) and then going looking for reasons to believe what you wanted to believe in the first place.

What? So most of the ice isn't floating?

 

[epidural man]

PGG,

do you think that I am arguing that climate change isn't happening? 98% of the scientist on the "debate" is that man made polition is effecting climate change. THAT is the debate. Do you think I am debating against this?

 

[Spinach Dip]

I still contend that even given some of the ice OVER land will add volume, the majority of ice that is melting is floating - thus not adding volume at all.

Wrong.

The majority of the antarctic bedrock is above sealevel (see attached topographic map). (The primary exceptions being the Ross and Ronne ice shelves.) True, if the ice shelves melt the change to global sea levels will be minor--but melting portions of east Antarctica will cause sea levels to rise because it is sitting on bedrock.



(And I'm not going to even touch the post-glacial rebound which would occur if you melt a sheet of ice 2 miles thick.)

 

[pgg]

PGG,

do you think that I am arguing that climate change isn't happening? 98% of the scientist on the "debate" is that man made polition is effecting climate change. THAT is the debate. Do you think I am debating against this?

I interpreted the tone of your OP to be along the lines of "get a load of what these climate changers think now" ...

There are several "debates" going on -

1) climate change is / is not happening

2) if it is happening, it's all our our fault / partly our fault / not our fault

3) if it is happening, and regardless of whether or not it's our fault, we can / can not alter the course by reducing CO2 emissions

4) if it is happening, and if we can alter the course, we should / should not do so by reducing CO2 emissions

Reasonable people can disagree about and debate 2-4. Reasonable people can't really disagree about 1 ... except perhaps the magnitude of the change and the consequences for people in different parts of the world.

Your OP, which started with a jaunty riddle me this and went on to misunderstand ice melting / water levels, before finishing with an "everyone says" strawman, seemed to fit right in with the denialists stuck on the wrong side of debate #1.

Hence my somewhat irritated tone in my reply above ... possibly because I misunderstood your tone? If so, my apologies.

 

[epidural man]

Well it was a juanty introduction - nice description.

And I am no way not an anti-climate change guy and think it is likely our fault (although the documentary "the globle warming swindle" was interesting") - I find it hard to believe the ice melting can raise the ocean level 10 ft. That seems so baffling to me. Then it occured to me that if most of the ice in the world (not just antartica) is floating - that wouldn't change the level at all - so I was just curious.

I know scientists way smarter than I have done tons of mathematical modeling to figure that stuff out - but I am also very skeptical of a lot of the claims since they seem politically driven.

 

[Ipassgas]

Most of the ice IS NOT floating. Antarctica is a continent, representing 10% of the earth land mass. It's bigger than Australia/New Zealand. Bigger than Europe. It holds on its (land) surface 90% of the world's ice. It has 70% of the world's fresh water (all locked up in ice).

If it all melted, it would be a minor statistical variation in the average depth of the sea. Actually, it's be less than a minor rounding error. 14,000' vs 14,010 or 14,020 feet. Minor change. Irrelevant really.

Unless you've been to any coastal region on earth. A 10' change in sea level would flood most of the world's human population. Add periodic storm surges, and 80% of the places people live are either submerged or at risk of flooding.

Catastrophic sea changes would not even register as statistical noise when assessing ocean depths.

 

[JoBreeze]

I just feel bad for everything the oil industry has had to go through at the expense of these PhD fat cats.

 

[epidural man]

Okay so I did some math -

The ocean is 140million square miles. Antartica is 5.4 millions square miles. Assuming 100% ice coverage over the land, to raise the ocean 10ft, it would take ~260 ft of ice to melt.

Since according to wikipedia - the average depth of ice is 1.2 miles (holy crap) - so 10 ft seems rather likely actually.

According to wiki - if it all melted the ocean would raise 200ft. Wow.