Global Warming & Rising Sea Level - Fuggetaboughtit

By Bryan Belrad, published Oct 23, 2007
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Every year the polar ice caps shrink a little more. Already, the mythical Northwest Passage has opened up as a navigable sea lane around North America. Parts of Antarctica never before seen are coming into view. Greenland is turning... well, green.

All of these things speak as powerful evidence of Global Warming. Given that 2007's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for work on spreading the word about this crisis, we can be sure that it's serious business.

But, as we worry about our coastlines moving inward, Florida vanishing, and Santa Claus's house going the way of Atlantis, we have to take a step back and wonder: are we being overly paranoid? There is so much to worry about in the world today, from toxins to terrorists, that it's easy for us to look at a change in our environment and see Doomsday looming just behind it.

Really though, our worries, in this regard at least, are dramatically overstated. Certainly, the drowning polar bears might not agree, and the walrus community has decided to invade Alaska, but Polar Melt (distinct from the other effects of Global Warming, like increased hurricane intensities) really won't affect mankind very much at all.

The estimates for how bad it will be vary by a wide margin, depending on who you ask, and how paranoid he/she is. They all share one thing in common, though: bad math.

The experts all calculate how much extra water the liquefaction of our poles will dump into the oceans, and therein lies their universal error. The northern polar ice cap could melt away, in its entirety, and it would not make any difference at all in the world's sea level.

Consider an experiment made popular on the by-gone television show "Mr. Wizard". Take a glass, fill it with ice, and add water right up to the rim. Will all that ice make the glass overflow as it melts? No.

 
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Iceburgs, no matter how large, already displace water equal to thier liquid equivalent volumes. Their melting will not change sea level - at all.

Credit: unknown

Copyright: Public Domain

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All our estimates of how far sea level will rise depend on adding X amount of liquid water to the oceans. We don't account for the fact that almost all the polar ice is already displacing water.
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Very true, 3 miles would be something, Greenland's ice sheet only gets about half that high. Even so, the 2.6 million cubic km of ice that do sit on bedrock above sea level in Greenland would translate into a world-wide increase of between 5 and 6-1/2 meters. That may not be much of a concern to most people, only those near the coast or on islands, but still, it must be remembered that even at the accelerated rate of melting now being seen, it will still take quite a few years (although not the hundreds or thousands those who would benefit most from maintaining the status quo ... oil companies, certain politicians, etc ... like to claim). However, speaking of a more long term view, there is also the Antarctic to think about, and while it will certainly take much longer to melt, it does contain (in non-floating ice) ten times the volume as Greenland, which is no mere "sheen" of ice, and something that should cause concern.

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Posted on 11/05/2007 at 10:11:00 AM

 
I stand corrected! I erred in stating that a 3 mile high ice mountain would tower over Mt. Everest (See? Even I make the occasional mistake). The great peak is actually about 5 1/2 miles high. Also, it should be noted that Greenland has some massive glaciers as well. Still, I must stress to you, dear reader, that a 3 mile thick chunk of ice is not the same as one standing 3 miles above sea level.

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Posted on 10/30/2007 at 9:10:00 AM

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