Vote Earth 2009

[Futureman]

Today i was thinking: the fear for increased sea levels.. isn t the north pole just floating on water? Isn t ice just solid water? What will happen if ice melts?

Nothing, am I mistaken or what?

Well, I guess you could easily do an experiment, put an ice cube in a glass... when it melts, does the level go up or stay the same?

Oh, but I guess that would all be redundant considering that the south pole is ontop of a landmass....

[nILS]

If it's floating a good bit of it is over the water level atm. So melting is like actually dropping it in the water ;)

[cimo]

If it's floating a good bit of it is over the water level atm. So melting is like actually dropping it in the water ;)

ice floats cause its specific weight is lower then water, water is the only substance that increases its volume when in  solid state. The "over the surface" portion of ice represents exactly the extra volume increased by the solidifying event.

 

Oh, but I guess that would all be redundant considering that the south pole is ontop of a landmass....

Antarctic ice doesn t go over 1m depth, water covered surface of earth is

510,072,000 km², southern summer-ice pack surface is around 5,000,000, that makes 1cm of sea level increase in a really disastrous event.

[Futureman]

Antarctic ice doesn t go over 1m depth, water covered surface of earth is

whaaaaat? are you saying that the ice in the Antarctic is no more than 1 meter deep? lol.. if so, please point me towards your informed sources..

have you stuck a cube in a glass yet?

[cimo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_ice_packs

ok, that s the thickness of the "sea-side" antarctica, the "land-side" has to be thicker

About 98% of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, a sheet of ice averaging at least 1.6 kilometres (1.0 mi) thick. The continent has about 90% of the world's ice (and thereby about 70% of the world's fresh water). If all of this ice were melted, sea levels would rise about 60 metres (200 ft).[19]

adios, Venezia

[rosch]

i'd prefer the ice to this waste, it at least can melt away

...and this waste can't be discussed away

[stryd_one]

This discussion is over 20 years old at least, and still going nowhere fast. I'm gonna quote one of my favourite movies lines ever, courtesy of John Connor:

Are we learning yet?

[Screaming_Rabbit]

... water is the only substance that increases its volume when in  solid state.

Wrong! Water is the only well known substance behaving this way... in the last 10 to 20 years, other anomaly behaving substances have been discoverd (I think it wa about 3 or 4 other ones).

Greets, Roger

Edit: Typos

[/tilted/]

What happens if the ice melts?

It's already melting.

[cimo]

Wrong! Water is the only well known substance behaving this way... in the last 10 to 20 other anomaly behaving substances have been discoverd (I think it was about 3 or 4 other ones).

Greets, Roger

interesting, hint/link?

What happens if the ice melts?

It's already melting.

Ye I know that, but what really surprised me is thinking how the complete melting of the north pole and of the sea-side part of the south pole wouldn t affect the sea level at any time. The biggest concerns about pole s melting is about the north pole which seems to be more affected. Afaik there is no big concern, temperature misbehaving in the south pole, and i clearly remember some docu showing the north pole ice-pack area statitics and then showing how this would affect the sea levels (i even remember my venice going underwater together with amsterdam..)

--I am not against or pro any theory, i am just trying to understand, and i am also very skeptical about any kind of mass media covered info--

[/tilted/]

The north pole is not specifically a big deal, since this is sea ice, and it expands and retracts seasonally anyway.

The real problem (especially for Europe) is Greenland. If the land based ice on greenland should melt and flow out, there are real concerns for potential disturbance to the gulf stream. This relates to Europe especially, since this current is one of the big reasons why europe is warmer than it's latitude suggests it should be.

Apologies for the massive picture, the point is that temperature is usually based on latitude, except of course in the very high mountain ranges of the Rockies, the Andes, the Himalayas, the Tian Shan... If the gulf stream were to shut down, or even slow down (which it already has started to do...) there would not be this movement of warm equatorial water, which warms europe. the result of this would be significant cooling in europe, while the rest of the world is trying to avoid warming.

[Goblinz]

What happens if the ice melts?

It's already melting.

What happened in 1993? We seemed to regain some land.

TBH there's a bit of my that thinks we are still recovering from the last ice age. True we are accellerating things, but surely the earth has it's natural rythems and we've carried on warming up since the ice age.

If we built a 60 meter wall round green land then would that be the problem solved?  ;)

[stryd_one]

Somewhere about 100 pages back :) I mentioned that we're actually overdue for the next ice age, a period which is typically marked by temperature rises... So I doubt it's recovery from the last one ;)

[Goblinz]

Somewhere about 100 pages back :) I mentioned that we're actually overdue for the next ice age, a period which is typically marked by temperature rises... So I doubt it's recovery from the last one ;)

Hmnn.. so what does that mean? We heading towards and ice age and are accellerating the process?

[SLP]

Wrong! Water is the only well known substance behaving this way... in the last 10 to 20 years, other anomaly behaving substances have been discoverd (I think it wa about 3 or 4 other ones).

Greets, Roger

Edit: Typos

Not entirely right.

Water has its greatest density at about 4°C.

If you heat it up or cool it down even more, it's getting less dense again.

Ever thought about how fish/frogs can survive in a frozen lake? The water just above the ground as always ~4°C

my2c

Edit: Typos...

Edit2: misread something....I'm running out of 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine  :P

[Screaming_Rabbit]

Not entirely right.

Water has its greatest density at about 4°C.

If you heat it up or cool it down even more, it's getting less dense again.

Ever thought about how fish/frogs can survive in a frozen lake? The water just above the ground as always ~4°C

my2c

Edit: Typos...

... did I make a statement on what the anomaly of water is?  :o

But what you write is not exactly true. It is true, that this happens but only by further cooling below about 70K. - But this is minimal. Above about -200°C, ice is behaving like most other solid materials.

Getting a lower density by cooling further below melting point, happens only by applying pressure and lowering the melting point by that.

[SLP]

... did I make a statement on what the anomaly of water is?  :o

nope, you didn't  :P

[Goblinz]

Does this have to break down in to a debate over the properties of water?

[cimo]

Does this have to break down in to a debate over the properties of water?

why not?

[stryd_one]

At least we're likely to agree on *something* that way :D

[bugfight]

why not?

hehe "break down"

was more hoping for debate on the young ones, or anarchy, or cliff richard...

[stryd_one]

Aren't they all the same thing?

[Goblinz]

hehe "break down"

was more hoping for debate on the young ones, or anarchy, or cliff richard...

There's no debate when it comes to the young ones.... an excellent series!

[philetaylor]

I watched every episode so many times in my youth that the VHS tape that we had them on snapped from over use. The by-product of this was that I can quote whole sections :)

Phil

Neil: You think that's bad?

Rick: Well Yes I do actually, what's it to you piss face?

[Goblinz]

I watched every episode so many times in my youth that the VHS tape that we had them on snapped from over use. The by-product of this was that I can quote whole sections :)

Phil

LOL, I had to replace my VHS copy with a DVD.